


Make the Fireflies Dance

by WelpThisIsHappening



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Compliant, F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2019-11-16 05:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 56,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18088463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelpThisIsHappening/pseuds/WelpThisIsHappening
Summary: An unconnected set of Tumblr prompts, version 2.0. Except, sometimes, of course, when they are connected. All of them do, however, include Captain Swan, kissing, happily ever after and, sometimes, more kissing.





	1. A Very Noble Quest

“Are you kidding me?”

Emma can barely contain her groan when she sees the flashing lights, the car on the side of the road stopped at angle that makes it all too obvious it had no intention of stopping there. She huffs out an exhale, all frustration and _another_ snow storm because it may be March, but it’s also Maine and, apparently, the world just likes messing with her at this point.

She clicks her teeth, doing her best to avoid chomping her tongue in half and that’s the last thing she needs. Well, no, the last thing she needs is this car on the side of the road and Leroy is going to kill her when she says she needs another tow and—

“Anna,” Emma says, reaching forward to grab the walkie talkie sitting on the passenger side of her car. No response. She refuses to be held accountable for the plethora of noises, and curses, that fall out of her mouth at that, skidding slightly as soon as her foot ghosts over the brake. “Oh my God, Anna! Anna, I know you’re there, there is literally nowhere else for you to go!”

There’s some fumbling on the other end of the line, a bit of very loud static and Emma makes a mental note to tell David they should really invest in new walkie talkies. Maybe they can ask Regina. Once they tell her that they need to completely rebudget the public works budget.

For more salt.

And like…dirt to throw at the road or whatever.

Emma should learn more about public works. Her car barely stops when she puts it in park.

“Anna! You have to press the button before you talk!”

“I know how to do it,” Anna mutters, but Emma’s not entirely sure of that and she can’t see if there’s a person in the car with the flashing lights. “Are you on your way back?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Ah.”

“What?”

“Someone was stupid weren’t they? You can’t yell at—what’s Leroy’s brother’s name again?”

“Dopey.”

“Emma, that is not his name.”

She mutters a few more pointed words under her breath, but Anna’s got a point and it’s just been the worst winter. Snow and ice and more snow on top of the ice that makes the ice impossible to see when people refuse to stay in their houses. Emma has called for more tows in the last two months than she knew was even possible.

“It’s not even him anyway,” Emma continues, tugging her hat further down her ears with one hand. “It’s—I’ve never seen this car in town before. I think it’s just some random guy.”

“Random guy? Em, are you trying to tell me that you know every car in Storybrooke?”

“No.”

“No?” Anna echoes, the hint of laughter in her voice and Emma knows that’s reasonable. It’s everything else that is the exact opposite of that. She’s going to use some very choice words with the random guy and his car that is clearly not designed to handle any sort of snowfall. “Because that’s certainly what it seems like. Also, did this person not see our very funny tweet? People shouldn’t be out in a storm like this.”

Emma throws her whole head back when she makes whatever noise she makes. It hurts her throat. “Anna, are you sending absurd tweets out again because you’re trying to go viral?”

Silence.

Deafening silence.

Until it’s not. Because the random guy is tapping on her window.

Emma’s hand flies to her chest, eyes bugging and curses falling out of her like particularly heavy snowflakes. “Jesus, fu—“ she starts, trying to catch her breath. He smiles.

Smirks, really. That is...ridiculous.

She waves her hand so he’ll back up, swinging open the door and glaring at him with as much malice as she can muster. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she snaps. “You know you’re not supposed to get out of your car in a situation like this?”

His eyebrows jump. While still smirking. She needs a better word than ridiculous.

“Yeah, I realize that, but, uh…I was just wondering what exactly your plan was and I figured you were actually here to help, so—“

“—Obviously I’m here to help.”

“Right, right, right, so, the lurking in your cruiser was just…part of the plan?”

Emma briefly considers throwing a snowball at him. It’s appealing, honestly. “I’m supposed to be heading back into the station. I saw your car. And your flashing lights. I had to call it in. That’s how it works.”

“Am I under arrest for being outside, officer?”

Her jaw drops – it’s kind of disappointing, all things considered, but he says it with such…snark and something that might be confidence and a hint of…she’s got no idea. Something not quite like either of those things, a little cautious and a little worried and his eyes keep flickering back to his car.

“You got something in there?” Emma asks, instincts kicking in and Storybrooke isn’t really the kind of place where danger lurks or anything, but it is the kind of place where she knows nearly every car and she’s never seen this man before in her life.

He blinks.

“Mr…” she prompts, waving her hands like that will inspire and immediate answer.

“Jones. Killian Jones.”

“Right, Mr. Jones, is there something in particular in your car that you’re very worried about?”

He blinks. Again. And the realization seems to wash over him quickly, lips parting, which means Emma might be staring at his lips just a bit. She’s freezing cold.

She hopes it never snows again.

“That’s awfully presumptuous, don’t you think, Officer…” He leans forward slightly, eyes flitting across the front of her jacket like she wears her badge there or something and—

“Swan,” Emma grows. “My name is Sheriff Swan, actually, so—“

“—My apologies, Sheriff, I didn’t realize that I was in the presence of such authority.”

“Seriously, do you want to get arrested?”

“For what?” Killian asks. “I don’t think venturing into this tundra is an actual crime.”

“Reckless endangerment.”

He shakes his head, a click of his tongue that makes Emma’s blood boil. It does nothing to warm her up. Because the metaphor sucks. “I don’t think that falls under the particular umbrella, unfortunately. Idiotic, yes, but certainly not a crime.”

“Who is law enforcement in this situation?”

“I defer to your law enforcement, Swan—“

“—Sheriff,” she sneers, and he flashes her a grin that almost reaches his eyes. Emma tilts her head. She’s always been very good at this, picking out lies and falsehoods and it’s served her well in her career, but, again, Storybrooke is well…Storybrooke and it doesn’t seem necessary all that often.

Until right now.

With Killian Jones.

And his car with flashing lights and lack of snow tires.

“Why were you out in this storm, Mr. Jones?” Emma asks, doing her best to keep her voice even. “Did you not see our tweet?”

It takes him a moment for him to react to that, which is fair because Emma’s not even sure how to react and she’s the one who said it. She hopes Anna never finds out. She’ll never hear the end of it. “I’m sorry,” Killian laughs, and Emma only realizes he’s not wearing a hat when he runs his hand through his hair. “Did you just ask me about a social media promotion? For what…your sheriff station?”

“No, obviously not!”

“Then…”

“Anna thinks she’s funny and, well, I’m fairly positive she’s got some bet with Ruby about getting the tweets on daytime TV or something and, you know what, here.”

Emma tugs her phone out of her back pocket, scrolling down her Twitter feed quickly and all but shoving the stupid thing in Killian’s face. His laugh sounds a little more genuine that time.

And his fingers aren’t freezing cold when they brush over hers.

“Storybrooke Police,” he reads. “It’s snowing again. We say roads are getting slick, tell you to stay home, most of you do, some of you can’t, some of you like to slide around to pick up Cheetos at the gas station. It is what it is.” Killian hands her back her phone, tugging his lips back behind his teeth to conceal his smile. It doesn’t work. In spectacular fashion. It’s going to take forever to dig his car out of this ditch. “They’re not Cheetos,” he says, and in the grand scheme of snark-filled, possibly flirtatious and wholly irresponsible conversation, that is the last thing Emma expects to hear.

“Wait, what?”

“Not Cheetos. Cool Ranch Doritos.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Killian shakes his head solemnly, turning on his heels to yank open the back door of his car. Emma counts three bags before he makes a vaguely triumphant noise, dangling a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in the air. “You’d never believe what I had to do to keep ensure the grocery store stayed open.”

“Because people aren’t supposed to be out in this,” Emma points out.

“Yes, so your social media just informed me. Unfortunately, I don’t have Twitter—“

“—You don’t have Twitter?”

“We’re still in the process of setting up our internet and—“

“—Who uses Twitter on an actual computer?”

Killian scowls at the interruption, but Emma is getting more confused and cold by the second and she can’t believe Leroy isn’t already there. Yelling at her. As if the snow is her fault. “Would you like the actual explanation, Swan or you would you like to keep trashing me in your head?”

She gasps. It’s embarrassing.

“I’m not doing that,” Emma sputters, but Killian’s already humming in a very specific and placating way and the snowball thing is looking more and more appealing. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“You’ve got a very expressive face.”

“Wow, that’s kind of a dick move.”

“I didn’t say it was a particularly bad face.”

“Jeez, tell your story!”

He salutes. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. _Ridiculous_. And not. “As you may have gleaned by my mention of a lack of internet, I am new to your charming, if not in need of a new public works department, town. Recently moved from somewhere that understands what salted roads are and—“

“—It’s snowed a lot this winter, ok?”

“Swan, if you keep interrupting, you’re never going to get to the heroic part of this story.”

“Oh, it’s a hero story, huh?”

Killian nods. She can dimly hear the tow truck working down the road. “My friend and I moved here. It’s a very involved, slightly tragic, not mine to tell story, but suffice it to say that, nearly as soon as it started snowing, said friend requested Cool Ranch Doritos, cucumbers and fluffernutter.”

“I don’t think they sell fluff in the grocery store on Main Street.”

“They do not, in fact.”

Emma is having a difficult time processing this. “Ok, ok, so let me get this straight. You went out to get your friend food. Who you live with. And he, she…”

“She.”

Huh. That’s almost disappointing. “She,” Emma repeats. “Couldn’t have done this herself? Or before the storm hit?”

“No.”

That’s it. That’s all she gets. She widens her eyes, waiting for more or another round of almost pleasurable banter, but there’s nothing, just a slightly stiff upper lip and Killian staring straight at her like any of this is normal. “Why?” Emma asks, certain she’s overstepped even before the question leaves her mouth.

“It wasn’t an option.”

“Right. Ok, and you were going back and—“

“—Hit some ice. I’m seriously considering writing a very strongly worded letter to your department of public works.”

“Are you secretly an ancient person in disguise? Is this some kind of Rip Van Winkle situation?”

The laugh he lets out gets rid of any tension she may have caused and Emma finds herself smiling on instinct. Until she hears Leroy yelling. Loudly.

“You got another one Sheriff?”

Emma nods, not puling her eyes away from Killian when he offers her a smile that’s less smirk and more genuine. He’s still holding Cool Ranch Doritos. “Yeah,” she calls. “You may have to get him out of the snowbank, but uh—do you think you need a mechanic or just tow it back to your house?”

“The apartment is fine,” Killian says. “I should, um…I’m assuming they don’t have cabs here, right?”

It’s Emma’s turn to laugh that time, but there’s a distinct lack of malice in the sound. She shakes her head. “I can give you a ride. Then Leroy can just follow us?”

“Are you sure?”

“To serve and protect, right?”

“Something like that.” His tongue darts between his lips and Emma’s starting to worry about the state of his ears. He can’t possibly be warm. “Let me get the rest of the bags out of there and then we can go. If that works?”

Emma hums, and there’s snow starting to seep into her right boot. She hopes that’s not a sign. “Let me tell Anna know what we’re doing so she doesn’t—“

“—Tweet out your disappearance.”

“For someone who claims not to follow social media, you certainly know the terminology.”

“That’s because I’m not actually Rip Van Winkle.”

Emma laughs. She’s fairly certain Leroy growls. And the whole thing is…normal. Killian sits in the passenger side like it’s a _thing_ , giving her an address that’s close to the docks and she didn’t even know there was an available apartment down there.

Her car doesn’t skid when she stops that time.

Maybe that’s a sign.

“Thank you for the help, Swan,” he says, as soon as she puts the car in park. “I uh—well, I can guarantee that it won’t happen again.”

“That’s alright. It’s kind of in the job description. And, you know, almost spring. So.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

There’s a lull – a distinct lack of conversation that might be the most awkward thing that’s happened to her in, at least, seventy-six years and she’s twenty-nine years old. She clicks her teeth, jaw aching slightly and it takes Emma approximately four seconds to decide on her next few words. “You want some help carrying your stuff up?”

Killian’s eyes widen. “What?”

“Your stuff. I mean…it kind of looks like you’ve got enough food for a small army and I—

“—Yeah, ok,” he finishes, far to quick to be anything except enthusiastic. Emma’s stomach flips.

She follows him up the stairs, careful not to trip on the sludge clinging to her boots. The apartment itself isn’t that big, but there’s a window that looks out on the ocean and the smell of something that might be hot chocolate lingering in the air and—a very solid, clearly pregnant body flinging itself at Killian as soon as he closes the threshold.

Emma’s jaw is never going to recover.

“I have come up with sixteen different and increasingly violent ways you had died while you were out there,” the woman yells, using both hands to swat at any bit of Killian she can reach. He does not look surprised. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

He eyes her meaningfully, reaching down to pull one of her hands away. “I didn’t have service on Main Street. And then then it was—it was a whole thing, but the car is fine—“

“—Why wouldn’t the car be fine?!”

“We’re very close to running out of road salt,” Emma answers, not sure if she should actually interject herself in the conversation, but she’s holding a bag of what appears to just be frozen pizzas and her heart feels like it’s shrinking. So, like, whatever. “And, uh…well, Mr. Jones’ car went off the road.”

The woman swats at his chest again.

“I am fine, love,” Killian says, and, yeah, definitely disappointing. “So is the car. And the Sheriff was kind enough to call a tow truck that may arrive in the next millennium and—“ He twists backwards, grabbing the much-travelled Cool Ranch Doritos out of the bag. The woman’s face lights up. “A very noble quest has come to an end.”

Emma’s going to go fling herself in a snow bank.

It will be better than this.

She can hear the woman thanking Killian, hugging him tightly and the whole thing is very nice. Or it would be if her mind weren’t her mind and she weren’t certain her right foot was frostbitten from whatever had seeped through her boot.

She really thought _friend_ wasn’t a lie.

“Well, I’m uh…” Emma starts lamely, dropping the bags at her feet. “I’m going go. Try to stay off the roads for at least the next twenty-four hours. Everything should be cleaned up by then.”

“Oh, don’t you want to stay for a second?” the woman asks, and she sounds genuine. “I’ve got hot chocolate and I’m sure you’ve got to be freezing after saving Killian.”

Emma shakes her head. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ve, uh…got patrols and stuff. Paperwork to fill out.”

It’s the worst lie in the history of humans telling one another lies. The words shake their way out of her and land at her feet next to the frozen pizzas and the weight of her collective disappointment. Her smile makes the muscles in her face ache.

“I’m sure I’ll see you two in town soon,” Emma continues. “It was, um…it was nice to meet you, Mr. Jones—“

“—Killian.”

“Mr. Jones. If Leroy doesn’t show within the next forty-five minutes, just call the station and Anna will write a scathing tweet to embarrass him.”

He chuckles, fingers finding the back of his hair. “Thank you, Swan.”

She doesn’t run out of the apartment – can’t because of the goddamn snow – but it’s awfully close and Anna asks _what’s wrong, boss_ no less than forty-two times in the next three hours. And Emma gives the same answer. Nothing. Nothing is wrong. Because nothing can be wrong. And she almost believes it by the time she gets home.

Idiot.

She throws away her socks.

And she resolutely refuses to think about for the next two days – far too busy with meetings and expense forms and the pipe in Granny’s basement burst, leading her to inspect that like she was some kind of authority. It’s the first chance she’s had to be in the diner since the storm, Ruby handing her a to-go cup as soon as she gets of the basement.

“Here," Emma says, struggling to grab the few bills she knows are crammed in her back pocket. Ruby is already shaking her head. “What?”

“Paid for. For, like…probably the next two months, honestly.”

“What?”

“Pick another word, Em.”

“Who would do that?”

“Anna claims he’s _random_ _guy_ , but he introduced himself as Killian to me and, this verbatim by the way, asked ‘If the sheriff comes in here regularly?’”

“And you were very quick to answer him?” Emma asks, not sure why her voice has that edge to it, but her stomach is doing that thing again and she’s already been an idiot once.

Ruby grins. “Naturally. He was very interested, Em. Also he’s stupid good looking and he wants to buy your coffee for—“

“—The next two months.”

“At least.”

Emma huffs, not sure if this is nice or placating or just a very over-the-top apology. She wants the coffee anyway. “The next time you see him, you can give him his money back.” Ruby’s shoulders sag. “I’ll see you later, ok? Tell Mary Margaret I’m bringing the food for the night.”

“Popcorn is not a food, Em.”

“It’s got melted malt balls in it, totally counts.”

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“You need to stop hitting on guys on my behalf.”

“Trust me, it was not that hard.”

Emma rolls her eyes, but she can still make out Ruby’s knowing smile and Anna is giggling when she walks into the station. “What’s your deal?” Emma asks, but all she gets is a louder laugh and a slight head nod and there’s a shadow standing in front of her desk she hadn’t noticed before.

She doesn’t ask anymore questions. She doesn’t have to.

“Damn,” Emma mutters, and it’s a mistake because it clearly gets Killian’s attention. He spins on the spot, all wide eyes and cautious optimism and his gaze flickers to the cup of coffee in her hand.

“I hope you didn’t pay for that.”

“That was unnecessary. And wasteful.”

“I don’t see it that way at all.” He takes a step towards her, less optimistic than just plan and obvious hope and Emma has to take a deep breath. It doesn’t really do much. “It’s uh…well, I’ve been informed that you may have gotten the wrong impression about me.”

Emma scrunches her nose. And twists her lips. She’s very tired of being confused. “I don’t think that’s possible. We talked for like…two seconds.”

“That’s true, but you did carry in all those pizzas and I didn’t really explain what was going on with Belle.”

“Your pregnant girlfriend? I don’t think there was much to explain.”

Killian grimaces, hissing in a breath of air and squeezing one eye shut. “Yeah, she said that’s what you thought. God, she’s going to be insufferable about this.”

“Speak English!”

“Belle is not my girlfriend,” Killian says, all determined honesty and a sharpness to his gaze that makes whatever breath Emma just took even more useless. “She’s…well, I wasn’t lying, Swan. She’s my best friend and I didn’t—it’s a very long and involved, slightly depressing story that more or less amounts to a dick of an ex-husband, an opportunity for me here at your hopefully soon to open harbor and—“

“—A very noble quest,” Emma whispers. She’s not confused anymore. She hopes.

Killian nods. “He was a dick. Is, still, presently. And she’s getting the divorce, but he kept making all these claims and trying to break his restraining order and—“

“—What?”

“Honestly, a dick. There’s…no, that’s the best word for it. So, when I got this job, I told her to come with me. Some kind of fresh start for both of us. We’ve only been here a couple days and then it was snowing and she just..the Doritos weren’t for me.”

“Yeah, I picked up on that, honestly.”

“Smart.”

Emma hums, not sure when she took a step forward but her toes are very close to Killian’s. “And it is a kind of heroic story.”

He beams. It would probably reflect very well off the snow still piled up outside.

“I’m fairly certain you’re the hero of the story at this point, love,” Killian says, and she’s not sure if he realizes the change in endearment. She does. So does her stomach. “Anyway, uh…Belle mentioned that it might be a good idea to say something to you when I’ve spent the last few days talking about you and—“

“—You’re talking about me?”

Surprise is a good look on him. So is confusion. And everything. But, whatever.

He licks his lips. “Yeah. Incessantly, if you ask Belle.”

“I might.”

“She’d like that. She was disappointed she couldn’t give you something for helping. And then told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I didn’t come over her and ask you out she was going to throw my belongings in the ocean.”

“Wow, that’s harsh.”

“Yes, it is.”

“So are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Asking me out?”

The smile, somehow, gets wider. It’s incredible. And ridiculous. And nice. And Emma doesn’t really think before she moves, just presses up on her toes and catches his lips with his because she’d been thinking about him too and—

The specifics do no matter. Not when he does that thing with his tongue.

They rock against each other for a moment, an arm finding its way around Emma’s middle while her fingers card through the hair at the nape of Killian’s neck. It’s an easy rhythm, and there’s probably a joke to me made about driving in perfect weather, but Emma’s having a difficult time thinking of anything except nipping on _his_ lip. So. She does.

He makes the most delightful noise.

“You’re not making this very easy, love.”

She laughs, _giggles_ , God, Anna is going to be so annoying about that, another quick kiss and swipe of tongue and they get distracted for a few more moments. “What did you have in mind?”

“What are your thoughts on a variety of other Dorito flavors?”

“How many do you think there are?”

“I’ve got no idea, but I’m very interested to find out.”

She smiles, easy and wanting and the hand that lingers on the small of her back is surprisingly comforting. “Yeah, me too.”

They don’t leave his apartment the next time it snows, curled, instead on the corner of the couch with every bag of Frito-Lay products they could find and the world’s most adorable baby making noise through every single movie they watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, remember when I was like...I'm not going to write as much fic this year? Ha, psych. I'm very stressed. This is what I do to fix that. I hope you enjoy it, internet. 
> 
> Come flail on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/) if you're down.


	2. More Famous Than a Yankee Can

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY OPENING DAY! The Yankees are going to win the World Series. So just...go ahead and jot that down. This has been sitting in my docs forever and a day, but it's OPENING DAY and I figured it was the best time to post it. It's also a sequel to [Start Spreading the News](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827868/chapters/35941569) so it may help to read that, but if you're like...nah, basically all you need to know is Emma and Killian just saw each other for the first time in years. It just so happened he was playing a baseball game at the time.  
>    
> Feel free to flail about everything and anything on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/).

She is impossibly warm.

It’s the first thing he thinks about, as soon as her fingers wrap around the front of his t-shirt and he’s certain he can feel every single inch of her, standing there on the stoop in front of her apartment building and it’s kind of like holding onto his own, personal sun.

The whole thing is a fairly ridiculous notion, mostly because Killian shouldn’t be thinking about suns or any other celestial being when Emma Swan is kissing him, but it’s been that kind of day and he’s going to have to deal with the consequences of that whole seventh-inning stretch thing eventually. He’s fairly certain Regina is going to yell at him.

There’s a joke about getting burned in there. He’s circled right back around to the sun.

And, really, Killian knows that the heat is probably a product of sunshine and walking several dozen blocks, which probably wasn’t a good idea after playing a goddamn baseball game and ignoring a goddamn baseball game, but his legs didn’t seem to care and he certainly didn’t seem to care and he can’t stop kissing Emma.

Or the other way around.

It absolutely did not matter.

The very first time, the _only_ time, they’d done this, he’d been an eighteen-year-old brat and she’d been sixteen and possibly the center of the entire universe. It had always felt that way, something about tides and drawn together and no one knew more about Killian Jones than Emma Swan did. Even Liam. It was easy to talk to her, sitting on back steps with the possibility of possibility in front of them and nothing seemed very likely, but that was equal parts exciting and terrifying for two teenage kids who could only count on their own dreams.

Neither one of them was ever really very good at sleeping.

It was because the house didn’t have consistent air conditioning.

So they sat and they talked and admitted things that were easier to say under a few stars, and they told him he had to leave three days after he turned eighteen. Killian told Emma, approximately, two hours and twenty-two minutes after.

Once he worked up the courage.

And his voice had shook, and his heart hammered against his ribs and he knew he stared at his shoes instead of her, because he wasn't sure he’d be able to cope with watching her expression change as soon as she processed the words. Or he didn’t want her to see his expression change as soon as he processed he might not ever see her again.

So he looked at his feet and stumbled over the words and she’d kissed him first then too.

Figured.

It was probably something about control and the sun never had to ask permission to shine.  

God, that sounded weird even in his own head. He assumes it’s because his fingers have found their way under the edge of her shirt and his mind is already drifting towards team-branded merchandise and how consistently he’d be able to hit if Emma was wearing his number.

What a possessive weirdo.

She didn’t freak out about the number thing though, and Killian wouldn’t have blamed her if she had, honestly. He’d kind of freaked out about the number thing because it was weird and sentimental and he hadn’t been hung up on a girl he knew when he was eighteen, but that might have been a lie and...something about Icarus.

Too close to the sun or whatever.

He needs to breathe.

Killian does not breathe. He can’t be bothered. He’s going to keep kissing Emma until she punches him in the face or something equally violent and absurd, because it’s been that kind of day and Regina’s going to hit him with several different bats.

Someone whistles.

One of them laughs when they, finally, pull away, foreheads resting on each other and smiles on their faces and touching her skin is like being burned and branded and some other verb that probably starts with the letter ‘b’ and is exponentially better than both of those ones.

“So the number thing wasn’t a total deal breaker then?” Killian asks softly, and Emma swats at his shoulder. He moves on instinct, years of training and practice and her eyes widen slightly when he catches her around the wrist.

It’s distracting in a way getting hit by a pitch is distracting. Like a ninety-six mile per hour fastball has just slammed into his thigh and left a bruise that won’t disappear for weeks, at least, and he’ll probably walk with a slight limp for a few games.

Killian needs to stop thinking of such violent metaphors. He briefly considers ducking his head to kiss her again, or profess several things that are completely out of the realm of possibility, but Emma is talking again and his whole mind keeps short-circuiting when that happens.

“A little stalkery, but in a nice kind of way,” Emma says.

“That’s the line I was trying to walk, for sure.”  
  
“So, uh…”  
  
“So what do you think you’re doing after the next home game?” Killian asks, and it immediately feels as if his heart bursts. Emma grins.

“When is that?”  
  
“Tomorrow.”  
  
She laughs, and it’s perfect and wonderful and he’d give up his signing bonus and player option to hear it every day for the rest of his life because he might have missed it every day for the last twelve years and he wants her to come to every single game for, like, the rest of forever.

Emma presses back up on her toes, an arm slung around his neck and the whole world could burst into flames and Killian isn’t certain he would notice. She kisses him again.

“Was that the answer?” he ask. “Because it didn’t seem like--”

“--Oh my God, you are needy. Yes, that was the answer. What did you have in mind, exactly?”  
  
He grins, hope and happiness and a ten-game hit streak he’s certain will be sparked solely on the way her eyes get brighter when she looks at him. “Everything.”

They don’t get off the stoop for a few more moments, which is, honestly, really kind of nice in a normal way that doesn’t include tragic backstories or professional baseball careers. It just is – the way it always was and, maybe, always could be and Killian is certain there are several thousand missed calls on the phone he turned off in the car.

“You, uh….do you have to get back to the Stadium?” Emma asks, and Killian kind of hates how cautious she sounds.

She stares at her shoes.

“Do you want me to?”  
  
“Ah, that’s a stupid, loaded question.”  
  
“Better get back to media training.”  
  
“Did you have to do that?”

He nods, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and it is impossible not to be hopelessly charmed by her. He may tell her that eventually. “On more than one occasion,” Killian admits. “Every team has different rules and expectations and--”  
  
“--And I’m going to go ahead and assume there’s nothing straighter than Pinstripes, right?”  
  
“I’m not sure your joke made a ton of sense, Swan, but, something like that.”  
  
She winces, gritting her teeth like she’s nervous she’s the root of this problem that is the exact opposite of that. “Can you get benched in baseball?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Why would you think that I can’t? It’s a sport.”  
  
“No, no, I know, but, like...it’s not like basketball or something.”  
  
Killian arches an eyebrow, mostly so Emma will click her tongue and roll her eyes and he’s only slightly worried if he does, actually go upstairs, he’ll never actually leave. That’s even more stalker-esque than the number thing. He hopes Elsa isn’t there.

He and Emma have never actually made out on a couch.

It might be a nice change of pace.

“Aw, c’mon,” Emma sighs, palms back on his chest and his fingers keep drifting back to the hem of her shirt. “You know what I mean.”  
  
“I promise, love, I absolutely have no idea what you mean.”  
  
“I’m mostly just….I don’t know, apologizing? For causing a scene and you’re probably going to end up on SportsCenter and like in _The_ _Times_ right?”

“ _The New York Times?_ ”

“That’s a newspaper.”  
  
“I’m aware it’s a newspaper, Swan, but I doubt _The New York Times_ is going to care about me or anything I did in right field unless it was catch a ball.”  
  
“You did that today,” Emma points out, and Killian is dimly aware of several camera shutter snaps a few feet away. He probably shouldn’t have worn team-branded apparel out.

That will probably be points five through eight on Regina’s inevitable list of all the things he’s done wrong in the last twelve hours.

“I did,” Killian agrees. “Kind of goes with the positional territory and you don’t have anything to apologize for, Swan.”  
  
She shakes her head before he’s finished talking, which is only slightly troubling, threatening to move some clouds in front of his metaphorical sun or however it would work. “I mean that’s just objectively untrue. There was yelling and you kept looking over your shoulder and that popcorn guy was so hardcore.”  
  
“Did he not tell you his name?”  
  
“No, that’s weird right?”

“Eh, I mean he was a little preoccupied distracting that one security guard.”  
  
“You saw that?”  
  
“Swan, you’ve got to stop acting like I don’t have eyes,” Killian laughs. “Or wasn’t almost painfully aware of you standing in that section.”  
  
“You were supposed to be catching foul balls!”  
  
“We’re repeating ourselves now. I did that. I promise, _The Times_ does not care about it, I probably won’t get benched, could get benched, will likely get fined and yelled at by my agent, but you’re not punching me for the number thing and I’d really like to come upstairs.”  
  
She blinks. That’s not the immediate reaction he was going for, but it’s still not punching, so Killian assumes he’s working with some kind of hitter’s count.

“Thoughts,” Killian presses, and Emma’s eyes widen. They are distractingly green. Something about the Oakland A’s and uniform colors.

“About _The New York Times_?”  
  
“The amount I want to talk about _The New York Times_ or any New York City publication is negligible, Swan. I’d be happy never to mention the newspaper industry again.”  
  
“Dying anyway.”  
  
“ _Daily News_ fired half its staff.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
Killian nods, the muscles in his face starting to ache from overuse. He’s fairly positive his calves are going to be sore for the rest of the season. It is all worth it. “Did you not know that?” he asks. “That was major news.”  
  
“I’ve been kind of busy. Unpacking and filling out paperwork. You know the NYPD makes you fill out a shit ton of paperwork before they’ll give you a badge.”  
  
“Yeah, I’d imagine.”  
  
Emma hums, but there’s nothing nervous about it. It sounds a bit like flirting. Killian hopes it continues to be a lot like flirting. For the rest of the season.

And longer.

“If I ask you to come upstairs again is that going to be weird?”  
  
“Nah,” he promises. “Unnecessary, but I did recently go to media training and I’m more than willing to answer questions on some sort of perpetual loop.”  
  
She smiles.

His heart bursts into flames.

“An incredibly impressive athlete,” Emma mutters. Her fingers are back on the front of his shirt, tugging lightly on fabric as she keeps smiling at him and definitely flirting with him. “C’mon, I unpacked my coffee mugs like as soon as I got here.”

There isn’t an elevator in her building, which isn’t doing much to help the state of Killian’s calves, but at some point Emma’s fingers lace through his and nothing really matters after that.

And he’s not entirely sure what he expected from a two-bedroom apartment in Chelsea, but walking into the room is like walking into a memory and it’s soft and warm and there’s a woman sitting on the couch.

That may make it difficult to make out there.

“Oh my God,” the woman breathes, eyes going wide and mouth hanging open and Emma’s hand tightens a fraction of an inch. Killian glances at her, a flash of a smile and something that might be a wink, but he’s admittedly a bit out of flirting practice and possibly losing what little control he had on the day.

The couch creaks when, presumably, Elsa jumps off it, crossing the space in a few, quick steps and Emma hisses in a breath. “You’re Killian Jones,” Elsa says, and it sounds like an accusation. He nods, the words getting caught in his throat and the vice-like grip Emma has on his hand. “You’re Killian Jones and you’re here. In my apartment. Well, our apartment. That’s...that’s a thing that is happening. I thought Mary Margaret was kidding.”  
  
“Wait, what?” Emma asks sharply. “You talked to Mary Margaret?”  
  
“Hours ago. I was honestly getting ready to send out some kind of search party. Did you guys walk back from the Bronx?”  
  
“Like 86th Street.”  
  
“Yuh huh.”  
  
“Got food.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Talked.”  
  
“Naturally.”  
  
Killian does his best to take a deep breath, but he feels like he’s being judged and evaluated for his trade stock again and Emma hasn’t ever let go of his hand. He tries to focus on that. It feels important.

Elsa’s eyes flicker towards him, a wry smile on her face. “You guys have made the news already,” she says, easy as anything and Emma curses loudly.

“Already, huh?” Killian asks. HIs voice doesn’t actually shake, which is as nice as it is surprising, but he knew it was going to happen as soon as his feet moved towards the warning track in the seventh inning and he’d absolutely spent the rest of the game glancing over his shoulder to make sure Emma was really there.

“I think there was some talk during the game, actually. Michael Kay was scandalized. Paul O’Neill thought it was kind of nice, I guess, at least that’s what David said and--”  
  
“--You talked to David about this too?” Emma interrupts, voice rising on every syllable and, that time, it’s Killian’s turn to squeeze his hand lightly.

“Was he the one that was going to kill me?” he asks.

Emma groans, but Elsa laughs softly, nodding as if she fully expected the conversation to deviate to murder plans and Paul O’Neill’s romantic tendencies. “You should absolutely be worried about that,” Elsa says. “Because he’s a huge Yankees fan and he was super excited when you got traded her.”  
  
Emma’s eyes look dangerously close to falling out of her face.

“What?” Elsa asks.

“No one thought to mention that?” Emma yells. She still hasn’t let go of Killian’s hand. He’s probably not counting the seconds or anything.

“No one knew that you knew Killian Jones.”

“I didn’t realize that was a prerequisite for knowing things! And it’s not really...I mean--”  
  
“--It’s been awhile,” Killian finishes. “What do you think we should name the popcorn guy? He didn’t introduce himself apparently.”  
  
Elsa laughs and Emma’s whole body sags with the force of her exhale, head landing on Killian’s shoulder in a familiar kind of way that makes his whole soul ache. That may also have something to do with all those blocks they walked and Regina is going to rip him apart.

Literally.

He has no idea how he’s going to swing a baseball bat tomorrow.

“So you just want to name him yourself?” Elsa asks, laughter clinging to the words. Killian nods.

“Feels rude to just keep referring to him as popcorn guy.”  
  
“Right, right, naturally. Did you know it was Emma as soon as he turned around?”  
  
He nods. “Immediately.”  
  
“Oh that’s stupid,” Emma sighs, both Killian and Elsa gaping at her and he refuses to be blamed for whatever his pulse does at the dejected tone of her voice. “No, no, not like that,” she continues. “Just...I mean I grew up, right?”  
  
Killian nods again. “I’m fairly certain that’s how the world works, love.”  
  
“Right, right, but you knew it was me.”  
  
“You knew it was me,” he says. “And you don’t even get to blame the uniform. No last names on pinstripes.”  
  
“A tradition like no other.”  
  
“That’s the Master’s.”

She laughs, soft and easy and her smile has already worked its way into several different corners of his being, tiny pinpricks of light that are far too sentimental for one day, but Killian knew it was her as soon as he turned around and he figure that has to count for something.

 _Everything_.

“Why do you know that?”

“Why are you quoting taglines for sports you’re not aware of?”  
  
“I think you just like arguing with me?”  
  
“Not like that,” Killian argues, almost forgetting about Elsa entirely and there are goosebumps on Emma’s arms when he brushes his fingers over her shoulders. “It’s just--”  
  
“--Yeah, it kind of felt that way, didn’t it?”

“Exactly.”  
  
They haven’t actually said anything, not really, but they’re only a few feet into a three-story walkup in Chelsea and there’s still a roommate standing there and some overpaid SportsCenter anchor detailing _the craziest thing you’ll see in baseball this season,_ and everything feels heavy and light and it would be easier if they were making out on the couch.

Killian doesn’t know why he’s so obsessed with the goddamn couch.

“I think the popcorn guy’s name is Bryan,” Elsa announces.

“What?”

“Bryan.”  
  
Emma jerks back when she repeats the name, eyebrows pulled low and she’s close enough to Killian that he’s a little worried he’s going to step on her feet. He keeps trying to occupy the same space as her. “Bryan,” Emma echoes, and Elsa shrugs. “Bryan the popcorn guy?”

“You got a better name? Also, shouldn’t he get kicked out for throwing popcorn at the field?”  
  
“We weren’t actually right on field level. I don’t think he’s got that good an arm.”  
  
“Aw, poor Bryan.”  
  
“We’re going to start calling him that and it’s not going to wind up being his name and that’s just going to be weird.”  
  
“You think you’re going to run into Bryan the popcorn guy again?” Elsa asks pointedly. Killian wonders if she’s a lawyer. It feels like they’ve just admitted to something.

He really hopes so.

There’s a blush to Emma’s cheeks, teeth digging into her lower lip and Elsa smiles triumphantly. “Maybe Bryan could buy you some peanuts next game or something. He’s getting his fifteen minutes because of you guys. Or CrackerJacks. Do they make CrackerJacks anymore?”

“That’s how the song goes isn’t it?” Emma asks.  
  
“Yes, but you were pretty busy during the seventh-inning stretch.”  
  
The blush gets….blushier.

That’s not a word.

He absolutely does not care.

“Aw, that wasn’t even clever,” Emma mutters. Elsa shrugs again.

“And they definitely still make CrackerJacks,” Killian adds. “They sell them at the Stadium, although I’m more partial to sunflower seeds during the game.”  
  
“No bubble gum, huh?” Elsa asks.

Killian opens his mouth to say something about even the thought of bubble gum is the worst thing in the world, but Emma answers before he can. “He got drunk on bubble gum flavored vodka once,” she explains, Elsa’s expression unreadable.

She’s definitely a lawyer.

“Did I ever actually introduce myself?”  
  
Killian shakes his head. “Not officially, no.”  
  
“Ah, that’s rude isn’t it? I’m so sorry.”  
  
Elsa thrusts her hand out in the space between them, a strong grip that’s not quite intimidating, but she was sitting on the couch and very likely waiting for Emma to come home and Killian can’t stop the groan that falls out of him when he hears his name coming from the general area of the TV.

“I think you guys are the lead story,” Elsa continues.

“God, of course we are,” Emma mumbles. And, reasonably, Killian knows he shouldn’t be thrilled by all of this, but yesterday he was sure Emma Swan was a distant memory and possible _what if_ , but now her hand is wrapped up in his and it’s a little sweaty and a little warm and he really can’t stop thinking of sun-type puns.

So, honestly, he couldn’t care less about _what’s supposed to happen_ when he’s far too preoccupied with what he wants and he pulls his phone out of his back pocket, turning it back on and pointedly ignoring the notifications on his screen.

He turns, flipping his wrist and presenting Emma with the phone. She lifts her eyebrows. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”  
  
“Tomorrow?” Killian asks, and it’s a shit way to ask her out on a second date, but he might be asking a hell of a lot more and he suddenly realizes he’d used the word _everything_ before.

And she hadn’t objected to it.

“Is it supposed to be doing that?”  
  
“What?”

Emma nods towards the phone, lit up like it’s goddamn Times Square and they’d successfully avoided that on their trek downtown. “I think you’re under attack. And being called and texted at the same time.”  
  
“God, she needs to relax,” Killian mumbles, but he knows that’s like hoping tourists don’t stop and take photos in the middle of Times Square. He all but slams his thumb into the _ignore_ button and Emma can’t quite keep her laugh quiet, which does something entirely unfair to several of Killian’s body parts, but he was woefully bad at science in high school and he never went to college and he’s spent way too much time thinking about the sun.

“Agent?”

“You’re a genius, Swan.”  
  
“That sounds a little like you’re making fun.”  
  
“I’m trying very hard to ask you out again.”

The blush turns into something else entirely, her lips pressed together and it almost feels as if his ribs are expanding and contracting at the same time. It’s not entirely unpleasant. It’s kind of warm in the way that _home_ is supposed to be warm.

Elsa mumbles something about _telling David to stop the search_ , but it’s white noise and Emma’s fingers brush over the back of his palm when she pulls the phone out of his hand.

“Yeah?” she asks softly, and Killian’s going to do permanent damage to his neck from nodding. It’ll be worth it.

He’s a sentimental, emotional sap and only kind of disappointed he didn’t actually hit that home run into section 203.

He figures he’s got the rest of the season to do it.

“Yeah,” Killian says. “So, uh….I don’t know what you’re schedule is like, but if there’s a chance you want to be in the Bronx again tomorrow. I can probably--”  
  
He doesn’t finish. Again. She’s kissing him and he’s kissing her and the floorboards make noise when Elsa moves towards her room, and it might not be the best first impression in the history of the world, but Emma makes a noise that Killian is suddenly determined to hear every day for the rest of his life, so that kind of takes precedence.

“Does that mean this was a date?” Emma asks.

“I’m a little disappointed that wasn’t more obvious.”

“Guess you’ll have to work on it the second time through the lineup.”

“That’s the greatest joke you’ve ever made.”  
  
“Now you’re just trying to woo me.”  
  
“Is it working?”  
  
She looks up, meeting his gaze and it’s all even and green and _easy_ and his phone is still ringing in her hand. “Absolutely,” Emma promises. “And I’m off again tomorrow so if you want to prove your baseball importance and get me tickets or something then--”  
  
She doesn’t finish.

They need to stop this.

They absolutely do not need to stop this.

They spend a few more moments kissing in the middle of her apartment, and Killian hardly notices when his phone clatters to the floor. Emma exhales against him, fingers carding through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Deal,” Killian says, bigger than four letters or one phone number exchange and it takes a few prolonged minutes to actually get his legs to agree to leaving that apartment.

He does, eventually, answer Regina’s calls, letting her shout and scream and mutter _what an idiot_ no less than forty-two consecutive times, and she huffs when he asks about getting tickets for tomorrow’s game, but there’s a shout in the background and Robin was always kind of romantic anyway.

“Let him do it,” Robin calls. “Think about the pub.”  
  
“That’s not why we’re doing this,” Killian argues. It’s a losing battle.

Regina makes a noise like she’s thinking or considering profit margins and how this could all translate into an endorsement deal and the couch in Killian’s apartment is incredibly uncomfortable. He ignores that realization.

“Can you do it Regina?” he asks impatiently.

“Are you kidding me?”  
  
“Well you’re just grunting into the phone and I’ve got some police officer out for my head and his wife is questionably intimidating--”  
  
“--Wait, you’re intimidated by the police officer or his wife?” Robin asks, and it sounds like Regina has put the call on speaker phone.

Killian rolls his eyes. “That’s an antiquated question, Locksley.”  
  
“That’s a genuine question because this is a confusing situation. Were you pining over this girl forever is that honestly what’s going on?”  
  
“She’s not a girl.”  
  
There’s an almost _too_ loud silence on the other end of the phone and Killian practically growls when he slumps down. And then Regina laughs.

Loudly.

So, maybe, he’s just descended entirely into madness. He hopes not. It would be really disappointing if this whole day was just a byproduct of his subconsciousness desperate desire to find Emma Swan again.

“Do you love her?” Regina asks pointedly, and now Robin is laughing and Killian might be dying. It would probably be more comfortable than this conversation. “Is that really what’s going on?”  
  
“Ah, c’mon, Gina, that’s romantic,” Robin sighs.

“Jones. I asked you a question.”  
  
“He always sucked at media training.”  
  
“That is patently untrue,” Killian counters, and he’s walked himself right into this corner. He’s going to blame popcorn guy.

He should probably buy popcorn guy goddamn season tickets.

“So then answer the question,” Regina says.

“No comment.”  
  
“That’s a yes,” Robin crows, and Killian can’t actually slide any further down the couch without twisting his spine into a wholly unnatural position.

“That’s not a yes.”  
  
“Sounded like a yes!”  
  
“Mills, can you control your husband,” Killian seethes, but there’s not actually much venom in the words and that’s only marginally frustrating.

“Look who’s antiquated now,” Regina mutters. “And are we only referring to each other by last name now?”  
  
“You started it.”  
  
“You are a child.”  
  
“No, he’s not,” Robin argued. It sounded like he was jumping up and down. “He’s in love and he wants to barter for this lady’s affections with seats in the box. Is that a better word, Jones?”  
  
“What is with the last name thing?” Regina asks sharply, and Killian’s eyes hurt when he squeezes them closed.

He’s going to bite his lip in half.

“Can you do it, Regina or do I have to call someone from...I don’t know, guest services?”

“That’s not the department you’d call at all guest services is for, like, groups and making sure there are first aid kits available.”

“If I make a joke about the state of your heart and your current need for first aid regarding your romantic life are you going to hit me the next time you see me?” Robin asks. It’s difficult to understand the question when he laughs it out though.

“Yes,” Killian answers simply. “I need you both to stop being so goddamn weird about this.”  
  
More silence.

Deafening silence.

The kind of silence that also threatens to hurt his spine.

“We can be not weird about this,” Regina says eventually, and that’s only kind of weird because it is absolutely the first time she’s ever said the word weird in real life. Killian’s mouth twitches. “But I’m thinking the love of your life probably won’t actually want to sit in the team box. She didn’t seem the type.”  
  
“You got that from the spot on SportsCenter?”  
  
“And a detailed breakdown of her and her friends from Ariel. I’d be worried about the police officer’s wife though. Sounded determined.”  
  
“She should be.”  
  
“He’s totally in love with her,” Robin mumbles, and Killian can’t bring himself to object. It’d probably be a lie anyway.

That’s not nearly as weird as it should be.

And Regina is as good as her word, she gets tickets, _plural_ , in section 203 and Killian turns during roll call to find himself face to face with the goddamn sun. There’s light shining off her hair, tucked under a hat that makes her ears look almost ridiculous, but in the best kind of way and he never knows how he _knows_ , because there’s no number on the front of her shirt, but she doesn’t have to turn around.

He knows.

He’s probably been in love with her since he was eighteen.

He figures that has something to do with it.

And whatever happens to every single nerve ending in his body when he realizes Emma is wearing his number in right field and smiling at him and he’s not _great_ at winking, but Killian certainly makes an effort. He can’t quite hear her laugh over the din of the crowd and the next name on roll call, but he knows exactly what it sounds like and the force of her smile when she meets his gaze is only a little staggering.

Killian jumps when he hears the crack of a bat on ball and he only has a few seconds to react, but that’s all he needs. He’s kind of fueled on the metaphorical fire of Emma’s eyes anyway and his legs ache when he runs.

He runs as fast as he ever has.

The ball lands in his glove and he hasn’t actually practiced his fundamentals in _years_ , but the cheers sound louder than normal and his ears are ringing a bit and Killian’s shoulder hurts when he slams into the wall.

His head snaps around immediately, looking for something he’s, at least, seventy-two percent certain he’s going to find, and Emma’s still smiling.

She’s also jumping. On the bleacher.

And yelling.

“What?” Killian shouts, throwing the ball back to the second-baseman and Regina is going to kill him, bring him back to life and then kill him again. He still can’t hear her.

“Again, Jones?” Scarlet laughs. He jogs towards the wall, glove tucked under his arm and an expression that’s somewhere between amused and incredulous.

That’s fair.

“Oh is that her?” Scarlet continues, nodding towards Emma and she’s standing with a guy who is probably the police detective. The police detective looks a little stunned. He doesn’t appear to be handling this as well as Mary Margaret was.

Maybe Killian will mention that at some point. It might earn him some extra points with Mary Margaret.

Killian makes a noise he hopes is an agreement in the back of his throat. “I can’t understand what she’s saying.”  
  
“Ah, that’s because you made some crazy catch in the outfield. Fans will fan, y’know. And, hey, maybe now that’ll lead SportsCenter and they won’t talk about this. Whatever this is.”  
  
“I doubt that,” Eric, the center fielder married to Ariel who is probably only _too_ aware of what this is, objects. “Is she yelling a name?”

“It looks like she’s trying to direct planes at LaGuardia.”  
  
“JFK is a far superior airport. There’s all that construction at LaGuardia.”  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Killian mumbles, working a laugh out of both of them, but Scarlet is kind of right and Emma is pointing at the popcorn guy. He waves. “Oh, damn, it is a name. Swan, you’ve got to enunciate!”  
  
She scowls, the eye roll barely visible. Scarlet rests his forearm on Killian’s shoulder, using him as leverage to take in the crowd that’s still screaming and they’re all going to get suspended. Rob Manfred’s going to walk to Yankee Stadium and give them forty-game bans personally.

“Anyone tell you it’s super adorable that you’ve got a nickname for her?” Scarlet asks.

“That’s her name,” Killian reasons.

“Mmhm, didn’t Ariel say it was a nickname?”  
  
Eric nods. “Was adamant about it. And how lovestruck Jones was while he was trying to stalk this lady, but I mean we were there for that too.”  
  
“You tell her you didn’t need that part of the update?”  
  
“You met my wife?”  
  
“Fair,” Scarlet chuckles.

“Both of you shut up,” Killian snaps. “I can’t hear her. Swan, we’ve got to stop doing this. I’ve got to go hit!”  
  
She rolls her whole head that time, shoulders sagging with the force of her huff and it’s difficult not to be attracted to that. “His name’s not Bryan,” Emma yells, and popcorn guy is still waving.

The police detective has not blinked in days. At least. David. The police detective’s name is David. Emma told Killian that in front of Columbus Circle the day before.

“It’s not Bryan the popcorn guy,” Emma continues. “It’s Miles the popcorn guy!”

“Miles,” Killian repeats, her smile getting wider at the stunned tone of his voice.

“Miles the popcorn guy.”  
  
“Hey, Jones,” Miles says. He’s going to dislocate his shoulder from waving so much. “Nice catch! We’re, uh...ignore those message boards. The real fans are psyched you’re finally in pinstripes. Long time coming, huh?”  
  
“Something like that.”  
  
Will is never going to stop laughing and there are footsteps moving towards them, an umpire or Rob Manfred coming to get them out of the outfield and actually playing the game they’re paid millions of dollars to play.

It’s probably not Manfred though. There’d be way more booing from the fans in section 203.

“Have we walked into the Twilight Zone?” Eric asks.

“That’s a fair question, actually,” Killian admits.

“Does Miles only eat popcorn? That can’t be healthy.”  
  
“I haven’t done a detailed study of his dietary habits, strange as that may seem.”  
  
“At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised. Shit, we’re all get going to get fined for your romance.”

“It’s nice though,” Will argues. “Makes our storied franchise more relatable to the public. Right? I bet Jones’ agent has figured out a way to spin it. She kind of terrifies me.”  
  
“I’m going to tell her that,” Killian warns.

Will ignores him, waving a hand through the air and Emma’s eyebrows jump when the words fly out of his mouth. “Hey, hey! Jones’ girlfriend! You got a name? It’s going to be weird if you come into the clubhouse and I don’t know what your name is.”  
  
David blanches. That’s fair too. The whole thing is a seemingly never-ending farce.

“Emma,” she answers, and her voice doesn’t shake. If anything, it gets louder. The umpire or league rep or _whoever_ stops moving behind them. Killian isn’t sure he’s still breathing.

It’s still not all that uncomfortable.

“Ok,” Will says, as if that’s that. “Cool. Emma and Miles the popcorn guy and who do you think is going to play you when they make the movie of this?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Oh my God, Scarlet, what did we just talk about?” Killian groans. “Shut up.”  
  
He grins, eyebrows jumping up his forehead and excitement practically palpable around him. “I'm thinking….like one of the Chris’s, y’know? What about the guy with you, Emma? You good with Chris Evans, police detective guy?”  
  
“How did you know that?” David asks.

“Word gets around a clubhouse quick. You going to duel Jones for Emma’s honor or, like, what are your thoughts on this?”  
  
“If he’s not an idiot and keeps making catches like that in right field.”  
  
“Shit,” Eric mumbles, but there’s a hint of humor to that too. “Lofty expectations.”

David shrugs. “The first one was more important.”  
  
Killian salutes. It’s ridiculous. He’s going to have to sign another extension to pay for all the fines he’s racking up.

“You going to guarantee a home run on back to back days or is that too much to ask?” Emma asks.

Killian tilts the brim of his hat up. “Are you asking?”

“Was that not obvious?”  
  
“Maybe we should work on that some more. Being more specific.”  
  
“At least a double. Against the shift.”

“You’ve got a deal, love.”

He would never say he did it on purpose. Not in front of all those fans and a police detective who couldn't seem to decide whether or not he wanted to glare at Killian or keep cheering for him and certainly not with two incredibly opinionated teammates standing next to him, but he might have done it on the hope that it would be alright and Emma hadn’t objected to _girlfriend_. So he didn’t do it on purpose, but he might have done it selfishly and needily and that second one isn’t a word.

Emma smiles.

“Alright, alright, c’mon Casanova,” Eric chuckles, yanking on the back of Killian’s jersey and the number that matches Emma’s.

He hits a single, and it’s absurd to be disappointed by that, particularly when it does beat the shift, but Killian had used the word _everything_ and he meant it and means it and all incarnations of all tenses.

They make the backpage of _The Post_ the next day.

Robin cackles when he shoves the entire paper into the phone screen, calling because they’re in Tampa now and Emma had come into the clubhouse after they beat the Orioles again.

Will shook her hand.

And it just kind of goes from there.

It’s chaotic and stressful and there is so much baseball during the regular season and then even more during the postseason because they win the Wild Card in the Bronx with Emma wearing her number in section 203 of the bleachers.

Regina had tried to get her to move into the team suite – ”It’s the playoffs, Ms. Swan, you shouldn’t have to be out there with all the normal fans.” “I’m sorry, what?” “Regina, are you suggesting there are levels of fans?” – but that had worked as well as Killian expected it to and he wasn't sure there was a bigger New York Yankees fan in the entire world than Emma.

Will and Robin had both laughed when she’d called after that Boston game, shouting about _intent_ and _should have charged him_ and nothing Killian had said got her to stop. Even after David promised she’d _lost her mind_ during the broadcast.

Emma leads roll call when the Yankees come back home after the Boston series. It’s on SportsCenter again.

“We should be getting royalties from this,” Killian complains, but she kisses him silent and they really are very good at making out on a variety of couches.

And they keep winning.

There are more games and more series and then it’s _the_ Series and the words are out of his mouth before he can really process what he’s saying.

“Do...do you,” Killian starts, tucked against Emma in a room with frames on the wall. She helped pick them out. And fill them.

“Do I what?”  
  
“I really want you to be there, Swan.”  
  
Her teeth find her lower lip, shoulders shifting when she takes a deep breath through her nose and Killian counts the seconds. Ten. Ten full seconds until she answers.

Or asks.  
  
“Yeah?”

He nods, the pillow rumpling underneath his cheek, and wills his heart not to beat out of his chest. It’s a close call. “More than anything.”  
  
“Should probably make Regina get tickets.”  
  
“Please don’t talk about Regina before I’m going to try and make out with you, love.”  
  
“Only try?”  
  
Killian grins and Emma laughs and they don’t get a ton of sleep before he has to get on a plane, but she gets on a different plane and when the ball lands in his glove in a right field that’s not _his_ , he’s certain his whole body erupts into flames.

Of joy. Or happiness. Or perfection.

Because they won.

And Emma is there.

It just takes some time to find her.

There are cheers and Gatorade dumps and Killian’s uniform is plastered to him by the time he works his way towards home plate and a line of family and friends with credentials hanging around their neck and some FOX intern is already trying to get him back towards the mound.

He is, apparently, going to win some kind of award.

Oh shit, he might be the MVP of the World Series. Huh.

Killian doesn’t see her at first, but he hears her, shouts of his name and what might be his number and no one’s referred to by number only since his days in single-A, but it’s kind of endearing when Emma does it and he nearly knocks over the barricade.

She helps when she jumps towards him.

“Nice catch,” Emma whispers, but that’s as much as she says before he’s kissing her and she’s kissing him and it’s good and great and _goddamn_ fantastic.

His lips slant over hers and her fingers find their way back into his hair, drifting to the drenched collar of his jersey, and Killian swears he can actually feel Emma’s laughter in the very middle of him when he tugs her closer. One of her shoes falls off.

“I love you,” Killian says, not the first time he’s told her or promised her, but this feels different and even more important and he has to blink when Emma leans back and beams at him.

Like the goddamn sun.

“I love you too.”

The barricade falls over with an impossibly loud crash and someone who is almost certainly Scarlet laughs, a phone in his hand and more laughter from New York and Regina shouts _stop making out for two seconds, you’re ruining the TV schedule_ and she’s kind of got a point.

“I’ll be right back,” Killian mutters.

Emma nods. “I’m counting on it.”

There are more pictures and no one bothers to put the barricade back up and the kiss winds up on the cover of _Sports Illustrated_ a headline about “New York State of Mind” that doesn’t entirely make sense, but they all buy a dozen copies and it looks good in a frame on the apartment Killian and Emma get together.

And there’s more to it all – a life and unexpected challenges and games that criss-cross the country, but Emma only ever sits in section 203 and Killian comes back home after every road swing and there are more questions and more answers and he changes his number eventually.

They’ve got a new birthday to celebrate and both Emma and Killian are positive he’s going to have one hell of an arm in right field.


	3. What Used to Be Limes

“So this is her, right?”

Killian arches an eyebrow, perched on the few inches of counter space they have. He fully expects whatever look lands on Scarlet’s face because that just seems to be how the man operates – a constant smirk and an expression that makes it seem like he’s already heard this joke before. It’s obnoxious.

But, like, in an almost endearing way.

In a way that makes him an alright roommate.

And an even better hockey player.

“What?”

“This girl,” Scarlet says, leaning back against the wall on the other side of the kitchen. Other side is generous. “The one who is inexplicably staying with us because—“

“—Ok, you said you were fine with it.”

Scarlet lifts both hands in mock-surrender. “Relax, relax, I’m not not fine with.”

“Why the double negatives?”

“That torture device I’m sleeping on is—“

“—A torture device?”

“You’re hysterical.”

“She’s only going to be here for like…two days,” Killian mutters, kicking his left leg out and those specific words in that specific order should not be quite that disappointing. He’s a mess. Literally. Figuratively. He hopes he doesn’t fall over on the ice tomorrow.

That would be embarrassing.

“Yuh huh,” Scarlet drawls. The expression gets even more pointed.

Killian groans, but he can’t actually roll his head back because there really isn’t much room in this kitchen and it’s probably against team rules, but it’s the season opener and his first season and he wants. In several different and decidedly selfish ways.

“Spit it out then,” Killian grumbles.

Scarlet’s lips twitch. “What?”

“Whatever opinion you’ve got percolating in that otherwise empty skull.”

“Wow. So, like, on a scale of one to thirty-seven thousand, how absolutely freaking out and absurdly nervous are you while trying to impress the girl?”

“The girl,” Killian echoes, doing his best to keep his voice even. It doesn’t work. He knows it doesn’t work. He’s going to have to do something drastic about Scarlet’s lips before Emma gets there.

She’s supposed to get there soon.

_It’s fine_.

Scarlet nods slowly, seriously. “The girl,” he repeats. “Your girl.”

“She’s not my girl.”

“Once more with feeling.”

“She’s not,” Killian promises, and that particular brand of disappointment is as, well, disappointing as it is expected. “She’s—“

He doesn’t have an answer. Maybe he should just fall over on the ice on purpose. Get it over with or something. Because he and Emma have always been…friends. Closer than friends. Not closer than _more than friends_. Just...whatever. She’d been leaving the campus gym at the same time he’d been walking in, a freshman year meet cute that was less cute than it was kind of painful because he’d turned the corner and she’d slammed into his chest and then cursed him to a variety of underworlds and it went from there.

He kept passing her. She kept glaring at him. They had spring semester economics together.

They were both woefully bad at economics. And, naturally, paired together.

It kept going. They barely passed their final exams, but there was alcohol and a celebration because _even that C is enough to get credit_ and she asked him what icing was that night.

He told her. And kept telling her. Hockey rules and hockey superstitions, _his_ hockey superstitions, a game he’d sort of stumbled into and settled into and she was there when he scored his one-hundredth point and lost in the Frozen Four and heard his name called on draft day, a hand wrapped in his and arms around his waist and he hadn’t had anyone else to come with him.

He’d never really worried about it.

Because Emma was there.

But then college was over and he had to find an apartment in New York and that meant a roommate in New York and practices and training camp and—“I made the team, Swan,” he tells her, breathless and excited and he doesn’t expect the click of her tongue on the other end of the phone line. “What was that?”

“Obviously,” Emma mutters, and Killian’s heart grows forty-seven sizes and bursts out of his chest. It is, he will guarantee, why the next few words seem to fly out of his mouth.

“Come here.”

“What?”

“Here,” he says. “For, uh—well, I bet I can get tickets. Or a ticket. Or more than one if you want to bring someone. You could probably bring someone and—“

“—Oh my God, shut up,” she interrupts. HIs heart returns to his chest. Only to beat in double time. “You’re cool with just me?”

“The coolest.”

“God, you’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, but something about being your idiot, so that’s got to count for something.”

She doesn’t answer immediately. He hasn’t been thinking about that for days. Just, like, maybe one day. A few hours. As soon as he woke up that morning. “Yeah,” Emma says. “That’s definitely true.”

Scarlet swats at Killian’s knee. He nearly falls off the counter. That would be worse than the ice thing. “Are you even listening to me?”

“No,” Killian answers honestly.

“The girl—“

“—Emma.”

“Yup, yup, yup,” Scarlet mumbles distractedly, and he’s very big on waving his hands it seems. “Emma. So, uh…you ever planning on telling her?”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

“Sounds a lot like an answer already, honestly.”

“It’s not.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

There’s a knock on the door. Killian would never say he _leaps_ off the counter, but it’s pretty damn close and Scarlet barely stays upright with the force of his laughter, an arm around his middle and whatever sound he's making ricocheting off walls that have only recently been repainted.

She blinks as soon as he swings the door open, bright green eyes and hair that has absolutely no right to be that shiny, but that’s as much as Killian sees before there’s a body crashing against his, her chin digging into his shoulder and her arms tight around his neck.

“Hey,” he breathes, pulling her even closer and they’re acting like they didn’t spend an hour FaceTiming the night before. “I think I’m supposed to be the one welcoming you, love.”

She shakes her head. It only makes her chin dig into his skin even more. He doesn’t mind. God, Scarlet is absolutely right. “I know, I know and this is—“ Emma takes a deep breath, what feels like the brush of her lips on the side of his neck and maybe he’s already fallen on the ice. Maybe this is a dream. That would suck. “I’m going to get painfully sentimental with you.”

“Or just painful depending on what you plan to do with your chin next.”

Emma lets out a shaky laugh, leaning back, which is not helping any situation Killian could possibly be dealing with. She grins. “Idiot. If I tell you that I’m stupid proud of you are you going to hold that over my head for the rest of our lives?”

“If not longer.”

Her feet are barely skimming the floor. He has no memory of actually _lifting_ her, but that’s neither her nor there when Emma’s smile widens and her fingers find the back of his hair. “Yeah, I figured,” she says. “Whatever, I don’t care I’m just so—“

“You’re…”

“Is that your apartment?”

“Was me opening the door for you your first clue?”

Emma clicks her teeth, scratching lightly at the back of his neck and it’s probably not the reprimand she wishes it were. The floor creaks when Scarlet moves towards them.

“So you’re her, huh?”

“Oh my God,” Killian mumbles, head dropping towards Emma’s collarbone. He can feel her laughing against him. He doesn’t try to put her down.

It will be a miracle if he’s capable of even lacing up tomorrow.

“And you’re the backup goalie, huh?” Emma asks. “I hear you’re real garbage at taking your dirty socks out of the bathroom. That’s gross.”

“Should we be concerned by how much Jones is clearly gossiping about us?”

“I’m going to take it as a compliment. Unless he’s saying shitty stuff about me. In which case I think we should both challenge him to drop gloves or something.”

Scarlet makes a contradictory noise. “I’m sure you’re very intimidating without gloves on.”

“Something like that,” Emma says, wiggling back to her feet and that is not a good word. No, that’s not true. It is a good word and Killian will probably think about said word for, at least, the next forty-eight hours, but it’s also a distracting word and the apartment sucks.

It—well, it sucks.

He’s going to have to sleep on the floor.

His mattress doesn’t even have a box spring.

He didn’t want Emma to stay at a hotel.

“So,” she says, dragging out the word and rolling her eyes when Killian darts his arm out before she can grab her bag. The smile’s still there, though. “We got to wait until puck drop to come inside or…”

“That was funny,” Scarlet points out.

“It happens from time to time.”

“Jones didn’t mention you were funny.”

“So he was talking shit.”

“Eh.”

Emma’s eyes flit towards Killian, the heat lingering at the tip of his ears. He wraps his fingers around his neck, well aware that it’s a _tell_ , but he’s suddenly very aware of every single inch of her and how much of it had been touching him and he’s not entirely sure if they have anything except tap water to drink.

“C’mon inside, love,” Killian says, ignoring whatever noise Scarlet makes at that. He’s probably doing something ridiculous with his hands too. “We’ll put your stuff down and then we’ll go get food and—“

“—You’re honestly not going to give me a tour?”

She’s already walking inside, twisting around him and the jaw that has landed, rather abruptly, on the floor. Killian hears her curse under her breath. “Did you put all your clothes in the closet before I got here?”

The sound of Scarlet’s body falling against the now-closed door is impossibly loud. He’s cackling. It’s absurd. And Emma is right.

Of course.

Killian hums. “There wasn’t a ton of stuff.”

“Sure,” Emma laughs, teeth finding her lower lip. He’s still holding her bag, knuckles going white as soon as she opens the refrigerator door. “Oh my God,” she mutters. Her hand flies to her mouth, eyes going glossy from something that might just be a combination of fear and surprise and a distinct lack of either of those things. “There are two things in this fridge.”

“Three,” Killian corrects. “If you want to get technical.”

“You can’t count two limes as two separate items. That’s insane.”

“And, technically, I don’t think they’re really limes anymore,” Scarlet adds, ignoring Killian’s _you are not helping_. “I think they’re like—“

“—Evolved?” Emma suggests with a smirk.

Scarlet winks. “Exactly that. Super limes or something.”

“It’s definitely something. What could you have possibly needed limes for? Oh no, no, no, let me guess, celebratory margaritas?”

“How did you know that?”

The smirk returns to a genuine smile and Killian’s heart is never going to recover. He’s got to put this bag down. It’s getting heavier, he’s sure. “I’m a Killian Jones post- _whatever_ celebration veteran,” Emma explains, and Scarlet’s eyes look like they’re trying to fall out of his head.

“And she’s obsessed with Serendipity frozen hot chocolate,” Killian says. “I’m pretty positive it’s the only reason she agreed to come here for the game.”

Emma sticks her tongue out. “You didn’t let me finish my sentimental speech before.”

“That’s because you wanted to take a tour of the apartment.”

“Yeah, well, one, I was not expecting you to be the single most stereotypical NHL rookie in the history of the world and you know sentiment isn’t really my thing.”

“I do,” Killian nods. Because he does. He might have cried more when he got drafted, which, was probably fair, all things considered, but he also wonders if maybe he doesn’t _feel_ just a bit more than she does and it’s an absolute garbage thing to think.

She’s not his girl.

That’s an antiquated sentence.

“You going to buy me food or should we just go to like—Shake Shack or something?”

“We’ve got a reservation at Serendipity.”

“No!”

“Swan. Give me some credit here. And I knew we only had what used to be limes. No human can eat that. They’ll die. Or become a mutant and there’s no time in the middle of season to learn how to control those powers.”

Her laugh makes him certain he’s going to score seventeen goals in his first NHL game. “You hate Serendipity.”

“Weird, I like you, though.”

“Flatter,” she mumbles, moving back into his space to tug on the front of his team-branded t-shirt. “I’ll pay for the cab.” 

* * *

 

She drinks two frozen hot chocolates. It is, hands down, the single most endearing thing Killian has ever seen. But then they’re back in the apartment and he’s trying to sleep on a pile of dirty clothes he’s pulled out of the closet and he can hear her before he sees her.

That’s probably important.

“This is ridiculous.”

Killian lifts his head, propped up on his shoulders and there’s something not-clothing like in this pile. “What is?”

“Whatever you’re doing,” Emma says, nodding his direction. “You’re going to strain something and I refuse to be held responsible for that.”

“Generous.”

“C’mon. This is—“ She huffs, crossing her arms over a Boston College hockey shirt that Killian is ninety-nine percent positive is his. It’s way too big on her. “It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”

That’s true. There were plenty of nights when he didn’t want to go back to his apartment or the other way around, hours twisted together on the couch in her living room with her head on his thigh, careful to avoid the bruises that always seemed to linger there. And he’s not sure why this feels different, but it does and it may have something to do with _tomorrow_ and possibly everything to do with what were, at one point, limes.

Like this has evolved too.

“If you don’t get any sleep you’re going to play like garbage and probably ice it sixty-two times and—“

“—Sixty-two times?”

Emma scowls. “Take my exaggerated point for what it is.”

“Deal.”

It isn’t easy to push back onto his feet, but Emma’s hand reaches out and her fingers are warm when they curl around his. She’s even warmer when she curls into his side, moving back down the hallway with slow steps that are easy and not and her hair, somehow, drifts close to his mouth when they fall onto designated sides of the mattress.

The floor creaks again.

And he’s fairly certain he’s already asleep, but hopeful this isn’t a dream either because the words she mutters are chock-full of sentiment and feeling and he’s going to hoard them for the rest of the season.

“I’m proud of you.”

 

* * *

 

He does not, in fact, ice the puck sixty-two times.

He does, in fact, ice the puck once.

He gets, exactly, eight minutes and twelve seconds of ice time and he doesn’t score in his first NHL game, but he does get a secondary assist and Killian glances up when they announce his name on the Garden speaker, eyes scanning a crowd for a face he knows he won’t be able to see.

He looks anyway.

And she surprises him – the picture waiting on his phone as soon as he gets back to his locker. She’s clearly got her arm held out, mouth open and scream obvious, crinkles around her eyes because her eyes are closed in something dangerously close to triumph. The caption is his favorite part.

_That pass, tho_.

Killian screenshots it. And makes it his lock screen.

Scarlet’s expression is unreadable. But Killian is far too busy thinking about a season-opening win and how easily he’d fallen asleep the night before and when he opens up the fridge the next morning, Emma already gone back to Boston on a red eye that was incredibly late or ridiculously early depending on who you asked, there is, somehow, a fresh lime sitting on the middle shelf.

With another note.

_Just in case you want to try for those superpowers eventually_.

 

* * *

 

She’s laughing at him. Uproariously. For the lat five minutes. Straight.

“Swan, you’ve got to stop that, it’s making it very difficult to focus.”

“What could you need to focus on?” she argues. “You are literally just throwing your shit in a duffle bag. God, did you even fold any of that? You know how wrinkled all that stuff will be?”

“They presumably have an iron in the hotel room.”

“When is the last time you used an iron?” Killian grits his teeth, trying to trace back through memories and laundry schedules and—“You have never used an iron, have you?” Emma asks, more laughter, and he’s fairly certain he can see tears in her eyes.

“You’re getting pretty high and mighty with your own iron skills over there, you know.”

“I’m perfectly confident in my lack of iron skills.” Killian scoffs, tossing a handful of what he hopes are actually ties into the bag. He’s got to find his shoes. “Oh, don’t make that sound.”

“What sound?”

“That sound,” Emma says, sticking her finger into the phone screen like it will somehow get through that same phone screen and press into his chest. Killian arches an eyebrow. “Or that face.”

“You’ve got a lot of qualifiers to this conversation, love.”

She scrunches her nose. “When’s the last time you did laundry?”

“How long have we been home?”

“You haven’t done laundry since you’ve been home? That was—what, three games ago?”

Killian shrugs. “It’s all starting to blur together a bit,” he admits, and the words sound a little bitter, but he’s never been this bruised in his life and it’s a lot and not and fewer minutes than he’s used to. But the hits hit harder and he’s still trying to _prove himself_ or something ridiculous and—

“There is a laundry place on your block that will fold your clothes.”

He can see one of his shoes stuck under his mattress. “Swan,” Killian says slowly, ignoring whatever his pulse is doing. “Are you looking up laundry options for me?”

“For the general populace and the New York Rangers fandom as a whole.”

“How you figure?”

“How are they going to root for you when you’re as wrinkly as you are? That’s got to be doing damage to your jersey sales.”

“I really don’t think my jersey sales are all that important, honestly.”

“Eh,” she argues, dropping her phone on the bed in Boston and it’s a few moments of prolonged shuffling before she’s back in the frame, slightly flushed cheeks and her lips pulled behind her teeth. She’s holding his jersey. It’s on a hanger.

He’s going to die.

“Swan.”

Emma’s nose gets even more scrunched, with the added bonus of gritted teeth. Her cheeks are flaming. “Ok, ok, do not get weird about this,” she mumbles. “This is a normal thing. You are a professional hockey player and I refuse to be acknowledged as anything except your number one fan, so—“

“—I probably could have gotten you the jersey, love.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want your merchandise handouts,” she counters, not quite able to get the right amount of acid in her voice to make it sound like an insult. Killian can’t stop his answering smile. “Anyway, like…you get a tenth of a percent right?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

“Shouldn’t your agent tell you that?”

“I was more focused on the guaranteed money,” Killian admits. “And the signing bonus. If only so we can buy a table for the kitchen.”

“You don’t have a table yet?”

He shakes his head. “We’ve been sitting on the counter. Or the floor.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“Welcome to rookie season or whatever.”

Emma hums – a noise that sounds far more thoughtful than this conversation deserves, but Killian is admittedly still very preoccupied with how she’d look while wearing his jersey. And maybe only his jersey. And that is a God awful thought. A dangerous thought. A _wrong_ thought.

He wishes it weren’t.

Scarlet is probably laughing somewhere. Just on…instinct or something.

“There’s also a tailor, like, every other storefront off Canal.”

Killian blinks. “You’re speaking in tongues.”

“Ok, you have heard of a tailor, right?” He doesn’t answer. Emma sighs. That’s what he was banking on. “This is—I’m just saying, your pants are a little—“

“—Are you looking at my pants a lot, Swan?”

Her face has never been that color before. She throws the jersey onto he pillows behind her. “You have a face, Jones,” Emma says, as if that explains any of it. “A—a good face, objectively speaking and, well—“

“—Oh, Swan, you’re reading the internet.”

She shakes her head. “No, no, that’s not entirely true. I am….one of the other officers at the precinct is a huge hockey fan and he totally lost his mind when he realized I knew you and then his fiancé found out and she’s got friends and—“ Emma hisses in a breath, letting it out just as quickly. “Anyway, some of the friends have mentioned the state of your face and that, you know, maybe it might not be a bad idea if your clothes fit a little better. Or whatever.”

He’s genuinely going to die.

If this is how it ends it is, at least, fairly pleasant – Emma Swan blushing furiously for gossiping about his clothing choices and whether or not his pants should be tighter.

“It’s just a thought,” she continues, and Killian makes a noise in the back of his throat. “You don’t—“

“I don’t think I’ll have time before this swing,” he cuts in. “But maybe once we get back home. You can double check how it looks and report back to the fanbase, alright?”

“They’re Bruins fans.”

“Fans of me, at least.”

“Or the potential for your thighs.”

“You wear that jersey in Boston?”

“Maybe if you score when you’re in Columbus.”

Killian grins. “Deal.” 

* * *

 

**Emma Swan, 10:45 p.m.:** You’re not allowed to gloat about that move.

**Emma Swan, 10:45 p.m.:** I’m serious. I don’t want to hear about it for the rest of the season.

**Emma Swan, 10:46 p.m.:** It was a pretty good move, though. Like. You know, objectively speaking.

**Killian Jones, 10:47 p.m.:** You’re an objective observer then?

**Emma Swan, 10:49 p.m.:** In theory.

**Killian Jones 10:50 p.m.:** You wearing the jersey?

**Emma Swan, 10:51 p.m.:** I think you’re obsessed.

**Killian Jones, 10:52 p.m.:** We had a deal, love.

**Emma Swan, 10:52 p.m.:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, and now you’re on some kind of goal-streak. Whatever. Also, I think the deal should be null and void if you’re going to be a dick about the hot chocolate options in Columbus.

**Emma Swan, 10:53 p.m.:** They should put a Tim Hortons next to the Garden.

**Killian Jones, 10:55 p.m.:** Yours or mine? Also still not an answer about the jersey.

**Emma Swan, 10:58 p.m.:** Photo attached.

He drops his phone. And Scarlet cackles. Uproariously. So do a few of the other veterans, some of whom have met Emma by now and know Emma and realize that any post-game text message Killian gets is absolutely, positively _always_ from Emma.

**Emma Swan, 11 p.m.:** Your silence is overwhelming.

**Killian Jones, 11:01 p.m.:** It’s obviously good luck.

**Emma Swan, 11:01 p.m.:** Yeah?

**Killian Jones, 11:02 p.m.:** Yeah.

* * *

 

“Oh my God, you goddamn fucking idiot!”

“Swan.”

“Idiot!”

“Emma, love you can’t keep yelling, someone is going to hear and—“

“—I don’t care,” she snaps, the words sounding as if they could reach out and slap him as well. He’d almost deserve it.

The whole thing was a mess. Goaded into a fight and he’s been getting more minutes, _third line minutes_ , but the guy was a dick and the game was a lost cause already and he wanted—

“Was this some stupid rookie attempt to prove how important you were to the team?” Emma asks, sounding a little sad and even more disappointed and Killian can hear the soft fear in her voice. His lips twitch instinctively. That’s selfish too. “Because that is just so…”

“Idiotic?”

“It seems silly to repeat myself again.”

“I don’t mind, love,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“What did he say?”

“Ah, all the usual garbage you’d expect. But we were losing and I’d hit the post already and—“

“—That is a normal thing that happens in normal hockey games,” Emma hisses. She’d been pacing for most of the conversation, a whirlwind of hair and fury storming into the training room in the bowels of the Garden and Killian hadn’t really considered how she managed to get back there, just assumed people let her through because they _knew_ or something equally absurd and sentimental because she’s been coming to more and more games when she’s been able to get days off and she’d taken him to the North End when they’d played in Boston a few weeks before and—

“I hated that,” she whispers, an admission he’s almost positive she didn’t mean to make.

Killian drops the ice pressed to his face, ignoring the ache lingering in his jaw and whatever noise Emma makes when he slides off the examination table. She sniffles when his hand cups her cheek. She’s wearing his jersey. “I’m sorry, love,” he says, not quite an _exact_ repeat, but more evolution and she’d driven from Boston that time.

With a bag of limes in her backseat.

Emma nods, letting her head fall to his chest and Killian doesn’t think before he kisses the top of her hair. “I knew that was a thing that could be, you know...happening before we got to this point,” she mumbles, the _collective pronouns_ doing something very specific to Killian’s continued ability to function. “But seeing it in person was just—and it took years for the whistle to blow and you’re ok, right? Aside from the bruise?”

“I think it makes me look tougher.”

“Idiot.”

“Yours, though.”

She lets out a watery laugh, another sniffle and her fingers have found their way under the hem of his shirt. “Yeah, mine. C’mon, there should be margaritas for your first NHL fight.”

They don’t get drunk – he’s got skate in the morning and she’s got to get back, but there’s a pleasant buzz under his skin by the time they both land on his mattress, weaving their way through a living room that has some actual furniture in it now, including a coffee table and some mismatched chairs they’d gotten from the indoor version of Brooklyn Flea when Emma came for the Christmas break.

And Killian knows he’s not asleep that time, is far to awake and coursing with adrenaline and want because there’s hair in his face and impossibly cold feet tangled with his and—

“Don’t do that again, ok? It really freaked me out.”

He wraps his arm around her waist. “Deal.”

* * *

 

He hops slightly, tugging on belt loops and groaning with enough extra dramatics that Emma’s mattress squeaks from the shake of her laughter. “You’re going to rip your pants before you even get them on,” she says, and the words are kind of squeaky as well.

Killian makes a face. “These fit in the store.”

“Then they’ll fit now, I don’t know what your problem is.”

“My problem is—“ He grunts and scoffs, something that might be a gag because he’s only a little worried about the state of several important parts of his anatomy, but then the fabric is moving a little easier and he doesn’t have to jump anymore and it’s very easy to button his pants.

Tailored dress pants.

And wrinkle-resistant shirts. Hanging on hangers. In the hotel room of another three-game road swing in Western Canada.

“Well,” Killian says expectantly, taking a step back so his entire body fits in the phone frame. “Thoughts? Feelings? Immediate reaction on the internet.”

Silence.

Of the deafening variety.

It’s not the response he was hoping for.

“Swan?”

Nothing. Still. Damn.

“That bad, huh?” Killian asks, forcing a smile on his face when he grabs the phone again.

Emma gapes at him, lips parted slightly and eyes far wider than he’s ever seen them before. Her cheeks are red again. Flaming, even. “Swan,” he repeats. “Love, you’ve got to actually say something, I’m kind of worried about the blood flow to both of my calves so if this is not worth that then—“

“—No,” she cries, eyes going even wider when the word is, presumably, louder than she planned on. “That’s, um—“ Killian waits, impatiently, but waits, watching Emma press her lips together and the muscles in her throat move when she swallows. “Um,” she sputters “That’s no…did you get those tailored, then?”

“I told you I was doing that.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Are you ok?”

“Yuh huh.”

“You’re not normally this loquacious, Swan.”

He’s never heard that particular brand of laugh before. He might already be obsessed with it. It seems to bubble out of her, not quite nervous, but a little awkward and, maybe, a little greedy and—“I guess we don’t have to worry about any lingering side effects from that fight, uh?” Emma smiles. “Impressive vocabulary you’ve got there, Jones.”

“I’m doing it only to impress you.”

“It may be working.”

“May?”

“May,” Emma repeats, but there’s still some color lingering on her cheeks and she keeps chewing on her lower lip. “But, uh…the pants look good. You been skating more?”

Killian tilts his head, hair dangerously close to eyebrows that refuse to stay at the right level. “You’re going to have to get stitches in your lip if you keep doing that,” he says. “And skating like a normal professional athlete.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

Emma nods, quick and jerky and her breath catches loudly when what sounds like Scarlet’s entire body slams against the hotel room door. “Get off the phone with Emma, Jones,” he yells. “We’re going to be late and I want Timbits!”

“Aw, you’re getting Timbits?” Emma groans, but her eyes are still tracing up and down his body and he’s going to hat trick. Based solely on that look alone.

Killian winks. “Canadian swing, love. I’ll send pictures, it’s practically the same thing.”

“Liar, liar.”

“Well we’ve already had so many discussions about my pants.”

Emma huffs. “Idiot,” she mutters. It doesn’t sound like an insult. It never really did.

Scarlet is kicking the door. “This is gross. I want that sour-cream glaze or there’s no point to any of this.”

“Ah, _that’s_ gross.”

“Right?” Killian chuckles. “He’s obsessed, though.”

“I’m going to leave without you, Jones,” Scarlet warns.

One side of Emma’s mouth tugs up. “He sounds serious. You better go. If you a Frozen Cap I’m not talking to you for the rest of the swing.”

“He can’t afford a Frozen Cap! He spent all that money on pants for you.”

“That sentence doesn’t even make sense,” Killian argues, but his stomach has flown into his throat and Emma’s eyes bug again. “Pictures,” he continues. “No Frozen Cap because I don’t know how I’d skate after that and—“

“—An assist?”

“Game-winner.”

“Lofty aspirations.”

“Reasonable goals.”

“Let’s go,” Scarlet whines, and that noise is definitely his head falling on the door.

Killian sends her pictures. She sends back a selfie. He can see the blue jersey in the corner of the frame. He makes it his new lock screen after the game.

And Scarlet can barely finish eating the rest of the Timbits without choking on his own laughter.

* * *

“You are over-mixing it.”

“Are these your margaritas, Scarlet?”

He shrugs, kicking his legs out, foot nearly colliding with the side of Emma’s knee in the process. She barely breaks stride, flitting from one side of the room to the other with a bottle of tequila in one hand and fresh limes in the other and Killian can’t stop smiling.

“You know we have chairs now,” Killian points out, slumped in one like that will prove his point. “You don’t have to sit up there anymore.”

“Yuh huh and if you keep putting your feet on that coffee table, you’re going to break it,” Emma says. She doesn’t wait for him to respond before turning the mixer back on and these may be the most well-blended margaritas they’ve ever had.

He supposes they have to be – a playoff berth and home-ice advantage and he’d been on the back page of several New York tabs that morning. Emma had bought all of them. She’d taken the whole week off.

To be there for both games at the Garden.

“Your girl’s got a point,” Scarlet mutters. Killian nearly falls off the chair. “I can’t imagine we did much to help the overall stability of that thing when we moved it.”

“Because you guys don’t know how to lift with your legs,” Emma says. She’s pouring margaritas. Killian’s not breathing.

Scarlet flashes a grin his direction. “We’re athletes, Em, we are more than capable of lifting things. That thing, though—that’s a freak of nature.”

“You think the coffee table we actually bought was just…made in nature like that? Where did you go to school again?”

“Give me my margarita.”

She does – with only a slightly patronizing smile and the tip of her tongue pressed into the corner of her mouth and Killian will probably hyper-fixate on that for the rest of the postseason. That is, until, Emma turns towards him, gaze going genuine and she nudges the sides of his legs until his feet fall back on the floor.

So she can sit on his left thigh.

His arm wraps around her on instinct.

“Should we toast, then?” Scarlet asks, doing a garbage job of sounding like he isn’t gloating. “To, uh—“

“The evolution of the limes,” Emma finishes.

Killian kisses her shoulder blade. Instinct. Or margaritas. Postseason hockey, probably.

Scarlet nods. “The evolution of limes.”

And it’s hours later, the quiet hum of the city echoing outside the window of a bedroom that does, in fact, have a box spring now, that Killian realizes no one ever objected to _your girl_ or everything those words entail.

He falls asleep with Emma’s hair brushing against his face.

* * *

They lose. On the road. In six.

And even that is kind of generous because that Game 2 win on Garden ice wasn’t really all that impressive, just a lucky bounce and Killian’s already started imagining what the back pages will look like tomorrow morning, Will not bothering to actually lift his duffel bag off the ground when they both clamor out of the car.

He’s got no idea what time it is.

“Are we being robbed?

Killian makes a noise, not sure if he can muster up enough emotion to care if they _are_ being robbed, but then the shadow sitting on the steps in front of their building is moving and moving towards him and he’s got half a second to realize the shadow is a person and the person is wearing his jersey and she’s so impossibly warm when she flings herself at him.

He drops his bag.

“Swan?”

“Hey,” she mutters, and the whole thing feels a little cyclical. In a romantic kind of way. God, he wants it to be a romantic kind of way.

He wants.

He’s not going to leave his apartment tomorrow.

“I know I should have called, but I also know you turn your phone off after a loss and—“ She leans back, breathing heavily even with her lips pressed together, a nervous energy in the air around her, like she’s scared of the reaction she’s going to get for showing up in SoHo after his rookie season ended and—

Killian ducks his head, lips catching hers and tongue sweeping across her mouth and whatever noise Emma makes at that is the single greatest noise in the history of recorded human interaction and romantic tendencies.

There is too much space between them, but he can’t figure out how to get her any closer and he’s going to dislocate his nose if he tries to press his mouth against her anymore. It makes Emma laugh. That may be better than that other noise.

Killian may be making a list.

He moves his tongue again, earning a soft groan and gasp for his efforts and her fingers fly into his hair. Like she’s trying to ground herself. There’s a soft thump somewhere, and it takes far too long for him to realize it’s one of her sandals. He’s pulled her up again, feet barely skimming the sidewalk, and it makes it harder for her to try and roll her hips against his, but Emma makes an effort and that absolutely counts for something.

Everything.

It counts for everything.

And whatever sound Killian makes when it, finally, works.

They break apart to fall back together, an easy rhythm that makes Killian wonder if, maybe, they’ve actually been doing this forever. It is insane that they haven’t been doing this forever.

Oxygen becomes a problem eventually – as does whatever Scarlet is doing, holding his phone out with several shouts coming in the background, because, at some point in the middle of the season, they’d become some kind of friend group and Killian can dimly make out Mary Margaret Nolan yelling _fucking finally_ from Boston.

“That may be the most surprising thing that’s happened tonight, actually,” Will chuckles, Ruby shouting _honestly though_ in agreement.

David sounds like he’s hysterical.

Killian ignores them, eyes pulling back towards Emma with a wariness that doesn’t make sense considering the way his shoulders are still heaving post-kiss, but he’s so goddamn hopeful and _greedy_ and he wants, wants, _wants_.

With his whole heart.

And a refrigerator that has absolutely no food in it.

Again.

“I um—“ she starts, a sharp inhale and press of her teeth in her lower lip, “—I love you. Just…and I have forever, but this season has been—I am so proud of you, honestly. And i know you’re pissed and that guy totally should have gotten two minutes because that was totally boarding and, ah, fuck it.”

She kisses him that time. Which is also cyclical. Or symmetrical. Killian can’t be bothered with proper vocabulary right now.

“Tell her you love her back, God,” Scarlet whines, earning himself more laughter and agreements from Boston and they’re all going to get arrested for disturbing the public.

Emma pulls back, her expression turning slightly cautious at that and Killian’s going to push his roommate in traffic. There’s not much traffic. It’s, like, two in the morning.

They’re chanting _do it_ from Boston.

“For as long as I can remember, Swan,” he says, flipping off the air when that particular sentiment is met with more groans. “I love you.”

It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done. Simpler than skating or learning how to shoot a wrister and it’s better than anything that’s happened all season, even when this whole season might have been one long attempt to woo Emma Swan.

Killian’s fingers brush over his own number on her back.

He may never get used to that.

“Can we go inside now?” Emma asks. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”

Scarlet actually guffaws and David sounds like his cackling, Ruby mumbling something that sounds like _oh my God, Em, the romance_ , but Killian nods, another quick kiss before he puts her back on the ground. She has to balance on one foot to get her sandal back.

“Should, I, uh—“ Scarlet starts, waving a hand back towards the street. Emma shakes her head.

“Nah, he’s probably bruised to shit anyway. And I drove here in, like, I don’t even know. I think I broke every speed limit ever.”

“That’s romantic.”

“That was the goal, really.”

“It worked,” Killian promises, slinging his arm around her shoulders and directing them towards the building. “C’mon, love, let’s get some sleep.”

* * *

He pays for Scarlet to stay in a hotel the next night.

It is worth the money.

So is the second night. 

* * *

 

And it goes from there. Another season and more wins and more losses, points and goals and lock screen photos of Emma wearing his jersey.

There are contract extensions and slightly nervous questions, a mumbled _will you_ —that he can’t actually finish before she’s jumping towards him with greedy lips and that tongue thing that Killian swears makes him actually see stars every single time.

They move eventually.

Still downtown, but with furniture the matches and a well-stocked fridge and Emma shakes her head deftly when Scarlet offers her a margarita.

“Nah, I’m good,” she says, and it takes him, approximately, twelve seconds before he’s shouting and jumping and trying to find his phone.

And it all times up fairly well, another good luck charm and more goals and they keep winning. They win…everything. And the lock screen photo has to change after that, Emma in a brand-new jersey with the same number as always, Killian’s arm around her and their hands resting on the sides of the baby sitting in the goddamn bowl of the goddamn Stanley Cup. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is entirely the fault of InitialA who asked for an AU of my hockey AU, but with disaster rookie Killian and because of who I am as a person I did not entirely follow the prompt. Also, I thought about making Killian play for another team, but even the thought hurt my soul so imagine we're dealing with some kind of Spiderverse thing here and there's just multiple Killian Jones'es playing hockey and being super into Emma Swan wearing his jersey. 
> 
> Feel free to come flail about anything, including, but not limited to playoff hockey, on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/)


	4. Hitting Against the Shift

“It is so hot out here.”

“If you keep complaining, it’s only going to last longer.”

Emma makes a noise in the back of her throat, not quite a groan, but possibly a growl and she fully expects whatever look lands on Killian’s face. It’s stupid. The whole thing is, really, pretty stupid, but Mary Margaret was sick and they needed  _ someone, anyone, Swan _ , which wasn’t the best reason to join whatever pick-up baseball league they all played in on the weekends, but Emma didn’t have any other plans and Killian had showed up at her door that morning what  _ that _ look on his face. 

She never saw him look like that around anyone else. 

God, it’s impossibly hot out. 

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Emma argues, and her water is already tepid. The game hasn’t even started yet. Her shirt is sticking to her shoulders.

Killian shakes his head, eyes going narrow and the ends of his mouth staying frustratingly tilted. “Incorrect. I’ve got it on good authority that complaining about the weather will not, in fact, do anything to change the weather.”

“Whose authority?”

“Mine, obviously.”

“Oh, right, right right and how exactly did you come by this authority?”

“I watch the weather forecast on a regular basis,” he says, easy as anything and she’s having a difficult time thinking about anything except how absurd his ears look in his uniform hat. They have to wear a uniform. 

“And that makes you an authority?”

“How often would you say you’re looking at the weather, love?”

Emma rolls her eyes, clicking her tongue so she can ignore the way her stomach jumps when he uses  _ that _ word. And, really, it’s not unusual. He does it all the time. He does the face thing all the time. He…exists. All the time. Part of the group and this morning is far from the first time he’s shown up at her door with a lopsided smile and those crinkles around his eyes. 

And he’s definitely looking at the weather forecast more than her, probably studying it before taking out tourists on the several different boats –  _ ships, Swan, honestly _ – he owns and Emma hadn’t been able to come up with a single reason to say no to the baseball invitation. 

She’s going to pay for that now, she’s sure. 

Metaphorically. In sweat. That’s gross. 

He looks impossibly good in that uniform. 

The pants are ridiculous. 

“Aren’t you hot though?” Emma asks, Killian humming in something that may be confusion or surprise and it will presumably be difficult to bat when her stomach stays firmly lodged in her throat. 

That’s disgusting too. 

It takes him a moment to regain his composure. Which, probably, shouldn’t feel like some kind of victory, but Emma is only a little worried she’s going to melt and she doesn’t really…understand baseball. There’s a reason she wasn’t on the team before. 

Killian licks his lips, shoulders shifting with the force of his inhale. He keeps his tongue pressed into the corner of his mouth. That’s cheating. Emma doesn’t say that out loud. It may be part of the baseball rules she absolutely does not know. 

“Say that again,” Killian challenges, and that’s kind of their thing. 

They’re friends. Sure. For sure. There’s no way they couldn’t be. Not when Mary Margaret is so determined to have weekly dinners at Granny’s and David believes it’s his duty as deputy to  _ welcome newcomers to town _ and Storybrooke is the kind of place where there aren’t many newcomers, but they all get welcomed and they play in pick-up baseball leagues every Saturday during the summer. 

But they’re also very good at getting under each other’s skin and it hadn’t been perfect at the start. 

Killian loves teasing her. 

It makes his eyes do something, almost sparkle, lips curling into a smirk and  _ that _ look and Emma isn’t sure when she’s gotten so possessive, but it might have been around Fourth of July last year and there’d been a baseball game then and she hadn’t shown up. 

She had to work. 

So David could play. 

But she’d come to Granny’s after and they were all still in uniform and that was probably part of it. Or seeing Killian sitting at the end of the counter with her kid, phone propped up on plastic glasses with the Sox game in the background, a quiet string of commentary and matching smiles. 

The plate of, what Emma assumed was once onion rings, between them was empty. 

She regularly tries not to think about that night. Because the end of that night hadn’t ended where she expected, lingering on the porch of her house with Killian standing on the bottom step and Henry trudging up the stairs, a bit of humidity hanging in the air and the promise of  _ maybe _ and  _ what if _ and she hadn’t really considered all the reasons she shouldn't have before she was doing. 

She’d stepped and he’d moved and they were very, very good at kissing each other, all desperate mouths and determined hands, tracing over slightly dewy skin and the hat had fallen on the ground. 

It had been difficult to catch her breath, everything  _ him _ and  _ them _ and collective pronouns she couldn’t consider because that was not a possibility. It was her and Henry and that was it. But he smiled at her and his hand felt good on the small of her back, a steady weight that was already almost normal and—

“Swan,” he’d whispered, forehead resting against hers with shadows falling at their feet. “That was—“

“—A one time thing,” she’d mumbled. The words tasted bitter on her tongue as soon as she’d said them, but Emma could feel her defenses rising and it wasn’t a mistake, so naturally she’d run as quickly as she possibly could. And Killian hadn’t tried to stop her. 

So she never said anything. 

She retreated and cowered and didn’t try to understand how baseball worked. Until, right now, apparently. 

“Swan,” Killian mutters, stepping lightly on the toe of her shoe. It had taken her, at least, six minutes to find sneakers that morning. “You went all glossy there, love, if you’re going to play, you’ve got to actually play.”

He can’t possibly mean the double-entendre she hears. 

She hopes not, at least. 

It’s too hot for that. 

He’s too hot for that. 

_ Jeez _ . 

“Do you play actual positions?”

David groans from somewhere. “Em, are you kidding me?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “And, strictly speaking, that’s not really an answer.”

Killian hasn’t moved his foot. He’s still staring at her, and Emma doesn’t know what to do with it – the force of it nearly penetrating, like he’s trying to read her mind or read into her words and she hopes they don’t make her pitch. That’s really the only position she’s aware of.

“First base,” he says.

“Come again?”

His eyes widen quickly, and it takes her heat-addled brain half a second to realize what she’s said, but that is so far out of the realm of possibility and she’s going to say something else, she is, except her tongue feels too big for her mouth and her throat feels like it’s closing and—

“Mary Margaret plays first base,” Elsa explains, twisting around the fence in front of them and Emma knows there’s a name for this specific part of the field. 

Henry’s going to be very upset he missed this. 

“It’s that one there,” Ruby adds. She points towards the spot a few feet in front of them, one of the players from Rosemir standing there and they all appear to be doing some kind of drill. 

Emma scowls. “Thank you. It’s literally the first base.”

“You looked a little confused.”

“C’mon.”

“I’m just saying. Observing, if you will.”

“Yuh huh.”

Ruby flashes her a smile – although it’s far more predatory than it probably should be, all teeth and lips that al but disappear as soon as her laugh flies out of her. “Did our gallant cleanup hitter also tell you what else Mary Margaret does?”

Emma hates the way her eyes bug, but her stomach is still not where it’s supposed to be and Killian squeezes one eye shut as soon as her head snaps his direction. He can’t tug on his hair the way he wants to when he’s wearing that stupid hat. 

And Emma shouldn’t know that about him. 

This might have been a mistake. She wonders where he bought socks like that. 

“I don’t know what cleanup means,” she mumbles, yanking her foot back and that nearly ends with her leg slamming into the bench she is seriously considering never moving off of. 

Fuck first base, honestly. 

“Batting fourth,” Killian says. His voice is a little lower than it was before, not quite as much bravado and that’s the worst kind of cheat. It’s almost earnest, a sound Emma refuses to acknowledge she absolutely covets because she thinks about Fourth of July way too often and she wants and wants and—

“It means he thinks he’s the best batter on this team,” David adds, and Ruby laughs even louder. 

“Aw, c’mon, Deputy, you are not that great a hitter.”

“I disagree. Who hit that double last weekend?”

“That was an error, we decided that,” Elsa says with a shake of her head. She’s trying to pull something out of David’s bag, grunting and groaning, but Emma hasn’t moved her eyes away from Killian and she cannot be expected to cope with the tongue thing for nine innings. 

Ah, that’s another thing she knows, apparently. 

David sighs dramatically. “It was not a routine play and—“

“—It bounced off his glove, David! That is the absolute definition of an error. Em, seriously, if it bounces off a guy’s glove, don’t let David try to dissuade you because he’s—“

“Can someone just tell me what I’m supposed to be doing?” Emma snaps, not entirely frustrated by the conversation. At least the one they’re having out loud. 

Killian’s lips twitch. “Mary Margaret usually keeps score. Because, as you can see, some of us like to pad our own stats a bit.”

“Ok, that is just absolutely untrue,” David cries, but Emma’s stomach has settled a bit. Killian’s chest moves when he takes a deep breath. 

She glances at David, spots of color on his cheeks that probably don’t have anything to do with the heat index. “That’s not what it sounds like.”

“He had to dive, Em! Diving is not routine!”

Both Ruby and Elsa mumble  _ hit his glove  _ under their breath. 

“How many times did you ask M’s to change it for you after the game?”

“That’s not important!”

“Eh, seems to be the crux of the issue here. Is it not just a hit if you…you know, hit it?”

There’s a collective groan around her and Emma’s only a little worried the guy at first base is actually laughing at her. She lets her gaze flit back to Killian though, another expression that’s decidedly  _ hers _ and she should stop being so greedy. 

They never really talked about the Fourth of July. 

Well, she didn’t. Whatever. 

“I can help, Swan,” he says, and that’s probably not a promise as well. Emma may nod. Her hair, at least, moves. “It’s really not that hard.”

“As long as you do it right,” David amends. Belle throws an orange slice at him. 

Emma flips him off. 

The guy on first is definitely laughing. 

“We’ll be fine, Swan,” Killian mutters. That’s a promise. She can hear it. True and honest and several other, big, important adjectives. 

Emma smiles. 

“You got a pencil?” she asks. 

“Nah, we’ll do it in pen.”

Ruby barely makes it back onto the field without tripping over her own feet, laughing so hard she’s got to clutch her arm around her stomach. They don’t give up a hit, with or without contact, in the first inning, Anna shouting and jumping up and down because apparently that is, perfect, which Emma almost understands and Killian sits very close to her on the bench. 

His hair is sticking to the back of his neck. 

“Ok,” he nods, sounding like he’s getting ready to help Henry with his history homework. That happens more often than Emma would like to admit. She’s not great at dates. Of any kind, really. “So, Elsa is deceptively quick, which is why she’s leading off.”

“Deceptively sounds like an insult.”

“Her words, not mine.”

Emma hums, grabbing the pen out of his hand and staring at the blank scoresheet with only a minimal amount of trepidation. “There’s not a lot of room to write things, is there?”

“That’s because you don’t have to write things. You—“ He leans forward, the curve of his shoulder brushing up against her arm and Emma knows there are no sparks. Really. She does. Her mind does not care. Because her mind is still in the field where Killian made some kind of play that cased David to yell  _ Nomar _ like that made sense and she didn’t care much about the references if she got to see him twist like that. 

It was surprisingly graceful. 

Even when the muscles in his right arm flexed. 

Especially then. 

“—Trace around the diamond here,” Killian continues, oblivious to Emma’s personal mental breakdown. “When they get a hit. Connect the lines to the base that they go to and then when they score, color in the field.”

“That seems like a lot of work.”

“It’s because Mary Margaret writes out single or double and it drives him nuts every weekend,” Belle mutters. 

Emma’s eyes dart up, Killian’s teeth digging into his lower lip. “That’s not true at all,” he grumbles, but there’s not much argument there and Belle mouths  _ see _ behind him. 

“Doesn’t sound like it’s not true,” Emma points out. 

“You’re double negatives are very confusing, love.”

“Please. If I write out the hit are you going to get super annoyed and steal the pen? This is a very fancy pen, by the way.”

Belle makes another face, swinging the bat in her hand like any of them are good enough to warrant warming up in whatever the name for that circle thing is. “Takes it way too seriously,” she sing-songs. “Cares more than David does.”

“No!”

“Mmhmm.”

Emma opens her mouth – not sure what she’s going to say because if he takes it that seriously then there should be absolutely no reason she’s sitting on that bench, but her heart is hammering far too quickly to form coherent thoughts and the sound of the bat shakes out of her reverie. 

“Run, El, run,” Anna screams, jumping up and shaking the fence, like that will increase her sister’s speed. It seems to work, though, Elsa sprinting towards first and it isn’t even close. 

The guy in—“Which side of the field is that?” “Right, love.”—tries to throw her out anyway, but it’s not even close to the glove, sailing over the first baseman’s shoulder and landing almost directly in front of Anna. 

She throws her whole head back when she laughs. 

“Go, El,” Killian cries, waving his hands like an air traffic controller. Emma’s going to bite her lip in half. And Elsa doesn’t nod, just takes off and—“She’s seriously so fast,” Emma mumbles, Killian’s mumbled  _ told you _ sounding more like he’s trying to prove himself than like he’s bragging. 

There’s a scuffle in front of the fence, the first baseman trying to grab the ball, but he, somehow, manages to kick it too and the whole thing is ridiculous and he mutters several curses when he finally curls his fingers around the stitching. 

Elsa gets to third. 

She’s clearly out of breath when she slides into the base, but both her arms shoot up in triumph and the whole team is on its feet, cheering. 

They all throw their hands up too. 

“Is that a thing?” Emma asks, getting several hums and nods. “Huh.”

She doesn’t mean for it to sound quite that bitter, but this is her first game and she didn’t really know what she was missing out on and there’s probably several metaphors about  _ the team _ to be made. She swallows them down. With her stomach. 

_ God _ . 

“So, uh—what do I write?” 

Killian makes an absurd noise, clicking his teeth. “I genuinely have no idea.”

“Well, you’re not help at all.”

“Ok, ok,” he nods, fluttering his fingers against the side of his jaw. Chiseled jaw. Jaw covered in scruff. Scuff that had felt very good against Emma’s neck. She’s a mess. A disgusting, sweaty, has no idea how to fill out the scorebook mess. 

“That was a hit, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, but only until she got to first.”

“That makes no sense. She’s on third!”

“She only got there because of the error.”

“You are not speaking English.”

“It’s not that hard, Swan.”

“You just said you didn’t know how to score it,” she argues, and Belle is already at the plate, a string of entirely unexpected trash talk flying out of her mouth. 

Killian grins at her. Lopsided. Stupid. Not stupid. “That’s true,” he agrees. “But only because she got to third and I wasn’t expecting that. Ok, it’s a single, but then she’d advance on the E9.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“The positions get numbered in the scorebook.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, it is honestly. You want to hear something even more stupid?”

“I can’t even imagine.”

The grin gets wider. She’s having trouble getting oxygen to her brain. “Ok, so the numbers don’t go in order at all. Pitcher and catcher are one and two, then first is three, second is four, but third is five. Shortstop is six.”

“You’re right that’s dumb.”

Killian nods, that same flicker of amusement dancing in his gaze. “And they count the outfield the opposite direction of the infield.”

“Why does anyone like this sport?”

“I genuinely have no idea,” he says, leaning towards her and it’s probably not on purpose. He jumps when David calls for him anyway, Belle on first base and Elsa tossing her helmet back into the pile because she’s, apparently scored, and—

“Seriously, get in the circle,” David groans as he marches towards the plate. “We don’t need you straining something while you’re trying to drive me in.”

“That is seriously misplaced confidence.”

“Stop getting distracted!”

Emma’s face flushes, a heat she can’t blame on the actual heat, and her eyes flicker down, the scorebook held loosely in he hand. “You’re going to have to tell me what to score it as when you get back,” she mumbles. 

“That sounds an awful lot like you think I’m going to get a hit,” Killian says, smiling when Emma forces herself to look up. She’s not sure if that was a mistake or not. 

“Go team or whatever.”

“Whatever.”

David does not, in fact, get on base, grumbling as he trudges back towards them, but Belle moves to second and Emma may gasp as soon as Killian swings. 

It is…stupid. 

She needs to read more books. Her vocabulary is clearly stunted. 

But his hips twist and his leg bends slightly, an ease to it all that is wholly unfair because she can see the tendons in his forearms standing out. He tilts his head up, and Emma can’t actually see the smile, but she knows it’s there because she may know him, way more than she ever expected to and she is the world’s biggest idiot. 

She’s committed several errors. 

And she’s only be in the field once so far. 

The metaphors have to stop. 

Emma can’t quite see the ball anymore, but Killian’s only jogging towards first because the stupid thing has definitely sailed over the makeshift fence in the outfield and someone around her must say something. It sounds a bit like  _ showoff _ and someone else saying something that sounds even more like  _ obviously.  _

She ignores it. Pointedly. 

And watches him run instead. Obviously. 

“You’re staring,” Ruby laughs, dropping next to Emma with a far-too-knowing smile. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yup, yup, yup. Sure. You may want to tell that to the size of your eyes. Saucers.”

“You know, I never understood that. Saucers really aren’t that big.”

“Depends on the size of the cup, I’d imagine.” Ruby twists her eyebrows, smile going wolfish. There are far too many teeth involved. 

“Jesus.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure you are. You just come over her to gloat or what’s your deal?”

“Mostly the gloating,” Ruby admits, shrugging. “But also to mention, again, that you are staring. And longing. And it’s a very long game and you should probably learn how to play with the shift or something.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“That’s because it didn’t really make sense,” Belle says, hooking her chin over Ruby’s shoulder when she comes back into the dugout. Ah, that’s the word for it. 

“Although, you are really yearning quite obviously,” Regina adds. Emma scowls. 

“I don’t yearn. What year do you think it is?”

“Right, no, no, of course not. Well, you might not. But he,” she nods towards Killian, only a little out of breath with a smile on his face and eyes that are, very obviously, searching for Emma, “absolutely does. Nice hit, Jones.”

“You can color in the whole diamond on that one, love,” he says. “And I think that makes me a better hitter than our heroic deputy, here.”

Another orange slice flies through the air.

“If David is heroic for being the deputy, what does that make me?” Emma asks, well aware that she’s pushing and playing and she doesn’t know what the shift is, but she assumes it’s some kind of baseball-type challenge. She’s going to roll with it. 

Or swing with it, whatever. 

“The savior,” Killian answers without missing a beat, and the whole team gags in unions. He grins at her. 

It makes her stomach flip. 

And she’s batting last. It’s not really an insult, because it’s Mary Margaret’s spot and likely more a commentary on her ability to, as David says,  _ put bat on ball _ , but Emma is still a little nervous when Killian hands her the helmet. 

Particularly in the bottom of the ninth inning, down one run because  _ they’d _ been the ones to make a few errors in the field and Killian had kicked at the dirt more than once. 

He’s really very competitive. 

“Oh God, that’s so ugly,” she grumbles, drawing a quiet laugh and easy smile out of him. “You know I’m going to strike out, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, no, no, you make contact, you advance Kristoff and you’ve done way more than Mary Margaret ever could.”

“I’m going to tell her you said that,” David yells. Killian ignores him. 

And the helmet is only kind of tight, which, Emma assumes, is equal parts for safety and because they definitely bought it second-hand. She kind of feels like her whole skull is getting squished though. 

She’s really got to stop these awful thoughts. 

“That is actually kind of scathing,” Emma says, reaching up to tug on the front of his jersey. That’s a mistake. And not just because it’s slightly damp. 

But because it makes Killian’s head fall forward, strands of hair brushing dangerously close to his eyebrows and he’d gotten another hit and sat next to her the whole game, mumbled encouragements and explanations of what the hell the shift actually is and—

“This is me psyching you up,” he reasons. His voice has shifted again, a little cautious and just a hint hopeful and—“It’s just too bad the kid won’t be able to see you save the whole lot of us.”

Emma scoffs, some of the tension disappearing from between her shoulder blades. “He’s never going to believe this.”

“Where is he, actually?”

“With his dad this weekend. That’s why—well, I had some time to play, you know?”

Killian nods, but there’s a flash of  _ something _ on the edge of it. “Not just to come hang out with us sad sots, huh?”

She hates that he says it like that. As if she actively avoids them. Which is, admittedly, kind of true because she has, admittedly, spent far too long thinking about how good he was at kissing her and how easy it was to kiss him and she wants, wants,  _ wants _ in a way she’s been refusing for far too long. 

He looks so good in those pants. 

“It’s not like that,” she whispers, and they don’t have time for this. She’s got to go get Kristoff to third or something. 

“Isn’t it?”

“Killian, I—“

“—No, no, no, Swan, it’s fine,” he interrupts, sharply, a quick retreat from flirting and a deep dive into regret and could have beens and her stomach isn’t in her throat. It’s at her feet. Being trampled. By errors. “Keep your eye on the ball. Don’t swing at the first pitch. And just—“ Killian takes a deep breath, the smile that time forced and almost a little insulting. “Try.”

The word rings out in the air around her, entirely impossible and Emma’s mind does not care. It latches onto it and hoards it, like first-edition rookie cards and inductions into the Hall of Fame, and she has to press her lips together to stop herself from spouting some truly asinine romantic nonsense. 

Until. 

She’s an idiot. 

And, maybe, finally, willing to try. 

It’s difficult, when she’s still wearing this God awful helmet, to catch his lips with hers, but there’s probably something to be said for instinct and athletic-ability and Killian helps. Again. Or always. Indefinitely, maybe. An entire career and life and it’s even better the second time. 

Emma pushes up on her toes, dropping the bat so she can sling an arm around his shoulders and let her fingers find the hair at the nape of his neck. It draws a muffled sound out of him, groaning into her mouth with a brush of his tongue and quick press of his hips, puling her closer as soon as his hand finds the small of her back again. 

They rock back and forth, a steady rhythm that probably matches up with the tide and she’s back to the weather puns. Her nose presses against his cheek, tilting her head to try and kiss him harder or deeper, determined to burrow herself into the middle of everything, the same way he already has. 

It’s intoxicating, which is not a word Emma assumed she’d think that morning. It doesn’t matter. It is all the same, overwhelming and overpowering and that’s it. Those are all the words she can come up with when Killian pulls away only to come back, like the second time through the order. 

She giggles. 

It’s ridiculous. 

But the sound bubbles out of her, happiness and something dangerously close to joy, and Emma can feel his mouth tilt up into a smile. She nips at his lip. 

That gets another noise. 

And more groaning from the peanut gallery who, it seems, have actually started throwing peanuts at them. 

The other pitcher appears stunned. 

“Can we, uh—can we play the game?” Kristoff asks, both hands lifted in the air where he’s standing at second. 

“This is the game,” Ruby shoots back. She’s draped over the fence, hat on backwards because  _ it’s rally time _ and David’s got his phone out. Mary Margaret is screaming from her couch. 

“We knew it, we knew it, we knew,” she yells. Emma freezes. 

“Swan—“ Killian starts, but that only makes her shake her head and she’s honestly the world’s biggest idiot. 

“No, no, that’s…” Emma huffs, tongue darting between her lips which makes Killian’s eyes shift and his hand tighten slightly. She’ll have to remember that. “I—why’d you want to come play today?”

He tilts his head, which is fair because it’s a ridiculous question and they’ve ruined the whole pace of this game. “I like having you around. Just…all the time, honestly. And I, well…” He clicks his tongue, on eye squeezed closed again like he’s trying to make sure the next word is the best word. “I know you’re worried about things going to shit, but I am—“

Cutting him off by kissing him is not her best idea, but it’s definitely Emma’s first idea and three is better than two is better than one. She can only imagine what four will be like. 

A grand slam, probably. 

“I don’t want it to be wrong,” she whispers, a quiet admission pressed to his mouth. They’re going to get kicked out of this league. 

“It couldn’t be, love.”

And, really, that shouldn’t be enough. There’s so much more to talk about and figure out, but sometimes, Emma figures, you’ve got to step up to the plate and swing and hope to make contact. 

“I like you.”

“I like you too. Quite a bit, in fact.”

“I am going to burn to death out here,” Kristoff yells. “Can we do all of this after we win?”

“Good confidence, babe,” Anna says. She’s sitting on the fence. Seriously, no one will ever play them again. “You hear that, Em? We’re totally going to win.”

“So no pressure or anything,” Killian adds, and that’s definitely another promise. 

She nods, fixing her helmet and grabbing the bat. “Ok.”

It’s not the best hit in the world. It is, Killian will eventually tell Henry, not much more than infield single, which “sounds a bit like an insult, honestly,” but the bat reverberates in her grip and Emma doesn’t think before she runs. She just acts. 

It’s a theme she’s willing to repeat going forward. 

Because they do win, not on her infield single, but on Elsa’s walkoff double and Henry had to explain what a walkoff was. Two days later, sitting at several tables pushed together in the corner of Granny’s, Killian’s arm wrapped around Emma with her head on his shoulder and a smile that she can't seem to shake. 

“So,” she says, dragging the word out when she glances Mary Margaret’s direction. “You want to fess up now?”

“What?”

“You said, and I’m quoting here,  _ we knew it _ during the—“

“—Makeout heard ‘round the world?” Ruby suggests.

“You’re not helping.”

“What do you think, kid?” she asks Henry. “Did you hear it several miles away?”

Henry shrugs, far too teenage to be entirely encouraging, but he’s also been decidedly encouraging and Killian’s already helped with history homework. “I don’t mind that much.”

“Strike one, Lucas,” Killian chuckles. 

“You’re not that funny.”

“And,” Emma adds, “doing a very good job of letting M’s get out of her explanation. So, let’s have it. Did you fake being sick? Think you’d get us together by force? What was it?”

“None of those things,” Mary Margaret answers, an honesty in her words that can’t be denied. Emma blinks. “It was uh—“ She twists, glancing at David who suddenly looks like he’s bursting at several metaphorical seams. He nods once. “I’m pregnant.”

There are several shouts, chairs scraping against linoleum floor when they all jump up, hands on cheeks and jaws dropping and Mary Margaret looks torn between overjoyed and just normally joyed. “So,” she continues, reaching forward to grab one of Emma’s hands. The other is tied up with Killian’s. That keeps happening too. “You may have to keep playing for me.”

Emma beams, wide enough that her cheeks ache. It’s the most pleasant thing she’s ever experienced. 

“What do you say, love?” Killian asks, a bit of sarcasm and hint of teasing and not much has really changed. She’s already lost track of the number of times she’s kissed him. 

“Yeah,” Emma nods. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of the game anyway.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get requests for sports stories. I write sports stories. Just not always according to plan @shireness-says asked for a sports story and I...did not follow the prompt. Like. At all. As is my nature. So, here is a slightly different sports story with the promise that I will, eventually, write the prompt she asked for. 
> 
> Feel free to come flail about anything, or send prompts I probably won't follow, on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/)


	5. Marking Up

“Wait, what?”

Killian grits his teeth, letting his head fall onto his hand and maybe this was a mistake. No, that’s stupid. He knew it was a mistake before he walked in — had done nothing except object loudly to the proclamations that this was _for his own good_ and _would help you get back out there_ because he didn’t need to do either one of those things.

It hadn’t mattered.

He hadn’t expected it to.

Because this team was some kind of weird, quasi family of overly-interfering teammates and front office personnel, a _professionalism_ that wasn’t really that since most of them had to work other jobs during the offseason anyway and—

He was an idiot.

But then he thought it might have been going ok. There’d been smiling. He had, by his admittedly shaky and slightly drink-muddled count, made her laugh, no less than six times and well…he was cautiously optimistic. But now it feels like he’s stepped in the crease and managed to draw a penalty at the same time and it’s probably unreleasable or something.

The metaphor is getting convoluted.

Killian downs the rest of his drink, a quick flick of a slightly bruised wrist that makes Emma’s eyebrows jump and that probably gets rid of one of the laughs.

“Ok, ok, wait, wait,” Emma mumbles, waving a hand in the air and that’s kind of distracting. He might be distracted by her. He might be exceptionally attracted to her.

He knew this whole online dating thing was going to blow up in his face.

Just maybe…not like this.

He’s going to slash Scarlet in the back of the knees tomorrow.

“I am—confused,” she finishes, and Killian should not keep letting his eyes fall to her mouth. Except. She keeps doing this thing. With her lip. Letting her teeth dig into it and he can just make out the tip of her tongue there, distracting and decidedly unfair and he was starting to believe that, maybe, her hair could actually reflect light.

He might be a little drunk.

This was not supposed to go this well. She was supposed to be crazy. She was supposed to be a little desperate. She was supposed to be boring. And then Killian was supposed to go back to his teammates and promise that if they ever tried to set him up again, he would do…something.

He hadn’t come up with the exact wording yet, but he was certain he’d get there.

Until.

Emma Swan was not crazy. Or desperate. Or boring. She was—other words. Good words. The kind of words where Killian was positive this was going well. She was a little nervous and possibly just as cautious as him, eyes darting towards the exit more than once, but then she’d licked her lips and downed her own drink in several, rather impressive gulps and she kept laughing.

She’d just moved to the Island — “It’s quieter out here and my kid…oh, I have a kid,” she’d muttered, a quick wince and Killian’s heart had sputtered slightly in his chest, but he’d smiled and nodded and that wasn’t a deal breaker. He didn’t use that phrase out loud. He was far too busy trying to figure out the scientific properties of her hair. “Anyway, my best friend lives out here. She teaches at Port Washington and her husband works in the sheriff’s department, so that’s how I got the job and like I said…it’s quieter out here. More space.” — and, apparently, those same friends were eerily similar to Killian’s because...

—

“This wasn’t really my idea.”

He smiled. “Mine, either, actually.”

“Is that bad? Do you think that’s a bad sign, like we’re incapable of setting up our own romantic nonsense?”

“I think the use of the phrase romantic nonsense to describe the last few hours gives me pause.”

That had gotten a laugh and a very slight blush, a bit of pink on her cheeks that he’d probably think about for far too long as soon as he got back home. “I’m just…you know what I meant. Neither one of us were trying to get set up on dates, but—oh God, did you not actually swipe right on me?”

Killian shook his head. “I’m not even sure what that means.”

Another laugh. “Jeez, that’s unfairly sweet.”

“Did you swipe right on me, then?”

“You just said you didn’t know what it meant!”

He’d shrugged, a flutter of fingers towards the bar tender and more to drink, feet hanging off the rung of the stool he was perched on. The toes of his sneakers kept coming dangerously close to her heels. But it felt a little juvenile to be playing footsie with someone he’d only met because his friends understood how Tinder worked. “That’s just general curiosity, Swan,” Killian grinned and, if asked, he would say he did not mean to lean into her space.

It would be a lie.

“I didn’t know that Ruby and Mary Margaret had set up an account until after they’d done it. But then…well, I set some ground rules, I guess.”

“And they were?”

“If I was going to do this, then I was going to pick who I actually wanted to meet and well, you didn’t seem like a serial killer and your profile was pretty nice and—“

“—My sister-in-law will be thrilled, she’s the one who picked the picture.”

“Oh, the lighting on that one was good, actually.”

“That’s exactly what she said.”

That was laugh five. “Well, she’s smart, then,” Emma said. ‘So that means…you’ve got a brother, then?”

“I do. Impossibly stubborn and very successful. It’s a wonder he managed to find time to make me into the internet’s most appealing bachelor.”

Laugh six was, hands down, his favorite. It rang out in the air around him, her head tipped back and smile wide, a sound that was better than the blush and whatever kind of magic her hair was capable of creating. It was good. It was better than that.

Because laugh six seemed to come easily, as if it were the most normal thing in the world and not caused by outside forces determined to make sure Killian stopped trying to linger in the past and could-have-been. He grinned. It hurt the muscles in his face.

Almost more than the muscles in his calves and those had been slashed to shit the day before.

“What does he do, then?” Emma asked. “And you’re very confident in your own success on this date.”

“A date, huh?”

“Was that not obvious?”

He widened his eyes, grin turning into something closer to a smirk and laugh six was still lingering in the air around them. “Liam works out east. Owns a whole fleet of ships that take tourists out for an exorbitant amount of money, so that they can feel like they’re one with nature and—“

“—Wow, that is scathing.”

“The lighthouse cruise he and Belle run out of Montauk is, like, two-hundred dollars a person.”

“Oh, shit that is a ton of money.”

Killian hummed. “It keeps him busy from Memorial Day to Labor Day and even a little after if he can push it. There’s, you know…leaf cruises.”

“No, there’s not!”

“I promise, there are. It’s nothing like they get in New England, but some of the city people don’t want to trek up to the Berkshires and Liam’s—these are his words, mind you, more than willing to reap the benefits of their exuberance.”

“Wow,” Emma smiled. “He should get that printed on cards.”

“Belle has considered it.”

“I’m starting to really like her. I bet she’d get along with Mary Margaret. So, then—you don’t help extort the rich during the summer? I thought you were a teacher.”

Killian blinks. “I am.”

“And?”

“And?”

“Well, Mary Margaret works at some kind of summer camp. That’s—Henry loves it so far. They’re going to some game later this week, I can’t remember what is, but I think it’s at Hofstra?”

His eyes flew open, wide enough that they actually started to water and Emma’s whole expression shifted, no trace of laughter or anything except worry because this had been going good and great and every other positive adjective despite the fact that he was totally trying to play footsie with her at a bar in Garden City. “What?” she asked. “Was that like…code or something?”

“No, no, I just, um—ok, so…”

—

She’s still staring at him. It’s not a bad look, per se, because he’s fairly certain that all of Emma’s looks are good, but the way her eyebrows pull down makes it blatantly obvious how green her eyes are and Killian isn’t sure how much longer he can actually cope with that.

He licks his lips.

“Lacrosse,” she says slowly. “Like…professional lacrosse.”

“Yup.”

“Professional lacrosse.”

“Saying it a dozen times is not going to change the fact that I do, actually, play professional lacrosse.”

Laugh seven is dripping with sarcasm, disbelief and a few more negative adjectives that Killian wants to ignore because this had been going well and—

“That wasn’t on your profile,” Emma says, and her eyebrows continue to defy gravity. “Why…didn’t you want to mention that?”

Killian grits his teeth. “The profile was not my idea.”

“Yeah, we’ve established that.”

“Most people…get, well, they have an idea about lacrosse,” he reasons. It’s not much of a reason. Emma’s eyebrows are even more impressive than her hair. “You know. Lax bros. And prep-school kids. Assholes with sticks in their hands.”

“I was only kind of joking about the code thing.”

It cannot possibly be good for his eyes to stay this wide for this long. “I’m very confused,” Killian admits, and Emma makes a noise that’s equal parts agreement and something bordering on endearing. He’s endeared by her. He is incredibly attracted to her.

 _This was not supposed to go like this_.

“Ok, ok,” Killian continues, waving a hand in the air and _that_ gets Emma’s eyebrows to jump into her hair. Figures. “What do you know about lacrosse?”

“Less than nothing.”

“What?”

“Is that surprising?”

“You live on Long Island,” Killian says. His voices rises, partially because of the alcohol and mostly because this doesn’t usually go this way. He’s not...famous. Per se. It’s lacrosse and that’s even less popular than, like…NASCAR and water polo in some parts of the country, but this is Long Island and he’d been good in college. Really good.

National championship good.

Until.

That wasn’t important now.

“I have only just moved to Long Island,” Emma hisses. She reaches out, stabbing the tip of her finger into the middle of his chest and Killian swears he can feel the heat of her radiating through his shirt and landing in between every single one of his ribs.

It wraps around his heart for good measure.

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing as professional lacrosse,” she adds. “Is that…is that a new thing?”

Killian shakes his head. “No, not at all.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Emma hasn’t moved her finger. “Ok, back up for a second. Why didn’t you put that on your profile, though? Wouldn’t you…if you’re a professional athlete, wouldn’t you want to brag about that?”

“I promise, I am definitely a professional athlete.”

“But…lacrosse?”

He can’t help the slightly sardonic laugh that falls out of him, hand reaching up to curl around her wrist. She doesn’t object. That’s probably something. “I’ve been playing for the Lizards for five summers and—“

“—The Lizards? Honestly?”

“Swan, if you’re going to interrupt, then none of this is ever going to make sense.” She rolls her eyes, but there still isn’t an objection. Somethings. Lots of somethings. “I grew up playing lacrosse. Was good in high school—ask Mary Margaret about the Smithtown East records.”

“You are speaking in tongues!”

“Ok, ok. Well, I was good in high school, better in college and then—“ He hisses in a breath, well aware that this is the least first-date conversation in the history of any first dates, but he’s also going to blame his teammates and there’s a reason he didn’t want this on his profile. “I was good in college. We won and things were great and then, uh—“

“Oh, I know that look,” Emma mutters. She doesn’t sound quite as frustrated anymore, pulling her finger away and that shouldn’t be as disappointing as it is. Until. Again. She twists her wrist, letting her fingers wrap around his, a slight squeeze and soft smile that makes his whole heart lurch. “Let me guess, your friends totally told you that this whole profile thing was for your own good because it was time to stop…oh did they use wallowing?”

“Several times.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, a scrunch of her nose that is impossibly attractive. “Nah, don’t be. So how does your dramatic relationship circle back to lacrosse?”

“I was a senior, we were going to win the national championship again, and she was still married to the dean of students.”  Killian rushes over the words, and, to her credit, Emma does her best not to react, but it’s clear she wants to, a clench to her jaw that he understands in, like, his soul or something. “I’m not really sure how we thought it was going to end well, but—uh,” He shrugs, shaking strands of hair away from his eyes and Emma’s really are distractingly green. “People figured it out, obviously. It was bad. There were hearings and discussions, stories and for awhile it looked like I was going to get expelled.”

“Did you?”

“No. I don’t know what happened. A miracle, maybe. But I got suspended. Actions detrimental to team. Missed the conference tournament and the rest of the playoffs. They lost in the national championship.”

“And you think that’s your fault?” Emma asks, sounding like she already knows the answer. He shrugs again.

“I’ve considered it.”

“But you’re playing professional lacrosse.”

“Yeah, that’s probably another miracle, honestly. Open tryouts.”

“For a professional team?”

“Professional should probably have an asterisk,” Killian admits. “It’s…we’re not exactly packing stands or anything.”

“I didn’t know professional lacrosse was a thing until literally this moment.” Killian chuckles, some of the tension between his shoulder dissipating when he notices the look on her face. A return to positive adjectives. And possible flirting. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Do they give you media training in professional lacrosse?”

“And college, actually.”

“No, shit, really?”

“It was more intense in college honestly. People care more about college lacrosse.”

“Wow, what a world.”

“That’s definitely the right mindset,” Killian says. “I’ve been on this team forever and they all knew what happened at school. And this game is—well, I’m good at it, like really good—“

“—What quantifies good in lacrosse, exactly?”

“We’ll get there.” Emma bites her lip. He kind of feels like he’s dying. In an exceptionally good way. “There are assumptions about lacrosse. The kind of people that play it and it’s really not a super popular league. I mean, your kid is coming to one of my games on a summer camp trip.”

“You’re not doing yourself a ton of favors, you know.”

“When I was a kid, lacrosse was a one region sport. Northeast. That was it.”

“Why?”

“Historically? Or like…financially?”

“This is very confusing,” Emma sighs. “What kind of history are we talking here? Because that’s not really my area of expertise either.”

Killian scoffs. “A very vast history, actually. Native Americans. A whole spiritual aspect that people like to really gloss over when making fun of lax bro names…” He sighs when he notices the expression on Emma’s face. He’s doing a horrible job of this. “Ok, lacrosse is old. Really old. Played by warriors and it’s only within, like, maybe the last few decades that it’s become some kind of frat boy culture thing. People have preconceived notions about lacrosse players. There are lists.”

“Lists?”

“With absurd names. It’s a thing, trust me.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Anyway. It’s still not the most popular sport in the world. Nearly everyone on the Lizards roster has to work another job and there’s always talk of the MLL going under. Plus, I hate box lacrosse, so I don’t want to play that in the winter.” Emma is breathing rather loudly through her mouth now. Killian pinches the bridge of his nose. “And…did you not google my name, Swan?”

“You looked like a normal guy! That’s—“ Her fingers tighten around his. “—I looked you up in the police system to see if you had a criminal record, but I felt like anything else was kind of cheating.”

He wishes this weren’t a first date so it would not be weird to tug her hand back up to his and kiss the bend in her knuckles. Maybe they’ll get there eventually too. “They’ve been trying to do this forever,” Killian explains. “Seasons and every summer and the only way I agreed to the whole thing was if they didn’t put the lacrosse stuff on there. I thought—“ He can feel himself blushing, the heat in his cheeks almost uncomfortable because professional athlete should be more confident, but professional athletes usually get drafted and don’t spend their offseason teaching middle school history so they can pay the rent.

“Oh,” Emma breathes, understanding in the two letters. “You wanted to be good as is.”

His answer gets caught in his throat. That’s probably for the best.

“That is…” she mutters, and laugh eight is soft and a little nervous and absolutely wonderful. “Really, really stupid.”

It’s not the last thing he expects her to say, but he was hoping for maybe a little bit swooning. “What?”

“I definitely would have swiped right even with the lacrosse thing. I mean—I don’t know anything about lacrosse. Who does, really?”

“This is not a compliment, Swan.”

“Have you seen your face though?”

They’re both blushing now, cheeks flaming and lips impossibly thin, fingers tangled up together because at, some point, they might have started holding hands. Huh. “Belle’s going to be insufferable about picking that picture,” Killian mumbles, and Emma’s head nearly crashes into his chest when she laughs.

He would not be opposed to that.

“How does lacrosse work?”

“What?”

Emma lifts her head up, eyes definitely greener than they were a few seconds before and—in the grand scheme of miracles he’s encountered, Killian is certain the biggest is that his heart manages to actually stay in his chest when she meets his gaze. “How does lacrosse work? If you’re going to tell me you’re really good, then—“

“—I am really good.”

“Then how does lacrosse work? Is it…there’s a ball, I’m assuming.”

He has no idea what sound he makes at that, but it’s simple and easy and not either one of those things because relationships never really are and he’s got a really good feeling about this one. “There is, in fact, a ball. And it starts with a face-off. The FOGO’s—“

“—I’m sorry, the what?”

The bartender is laughing at them now. That’s fair.

“Face off, get off,” Killian explains. He leans forward, partially to stay in her space and also to get his phone out, scrolling through the Lizards Twitter profile to try and find videos to prove he’s actually a legitimate professional athlete. “Here,” he says, nodding towards the screen and Will won that face-off clean. “See. He gets the ball in his stick, gets it to one of the middies and then we’re off.”

Her eyes dart across the screen and Killian know he shouldn’t be attracted to that, but she looks a little stunned and, maybe, just a bit intrigued and most people who watch lacrosse like it. Something about the speed. And the intensity And—

“Holy shit,” Emma gasps. “That guy just destroyed the other guy! Wait, wait, who is that guy? With the crazy long stick.”

Killian’s cheeks are never going to recover from this night. And Emma’s head snaps his direction so quickly he wonders if he shouldn’t suggest some physical therapy.

“That’s you,” she cries, swatting at his arm like he’s not aware of what number jersey he wears. “Are you allowed to attack other people like that?”

“Eh.”

“That doesn’t sound like a yes.”

“It’s a gray area,” Killian reasons. “Depends on the ref, really. Usually it’s best to just kind of aim from like his hips down to his calves. I can’t hit him above the shoulders. I’d get a card for that.”

“I thought that was soccer.”

“Nuh uh.”

Emma hums, the tip of her tongue pressed into the side of her cheek. “And your stick is absurdly long because…”

“I’m a long-stick middie.”

“Those are fake words.”

“They’re not. Long sticks are usually focused on getting the ball up the field. Take on the other team's best midfielder. Easier to pick up ground balls when your stick is longer.”

“Speak English.”

Killian grins, running his fingers through his hair and this is not the flirting he expected. It might be going well again. “My job is to get the ball up to the attack. Usually by getting those ground balls I was mentioning and checking the other team’s midfielders.”

“With shorter sticks.”

“Yup.”

“Is there a euphemism there?”

He nearly chokes. On air. The bartender drops one of the glasses. “No,” Killian stutters, “but I’m finding it difficult to talk about ground balls now.”

Emma flashes him a grin, still a hint of nerves because it’s a first date and neither one of them agreed to any of this, but it’s all going pretty damn well and—

She definitely moves first.

Eventually he’ll think that’s the most miraculous thing that’s ever happened to him, but in the moment he’s just thankful it is happening and she tastes a bit like alcohol. She sighs against his mouth, a little determined and that’s all it takes. Killian tilts his head, lets his nose press into her cheek and kisses her with as much enthusiasm as he can muster.

He nearly knocks the bar stool over.

His arm curls around her waist, the dim sounds of a looping Twitter video mixing with the music playing in that bar and the desperate way he’s trying to still get oxygen to his brain. Emma presses up on her toes, fingers scratching lightly against the back of his neck, and that only ends with more noise.

Killian groans, swipes his tongue against her lip and the whole thing is blissfully wonderful. He tightens his arm, pulling her closer until every inch of him touches every inch of her and he has to bend his knees to reach her. She laughs against him when one of them pops.

“Maybe you are a professional athlete,” Emma mutters, a quick hitch to her breath when Killian nips at her lip. “Oh, that’s cheating.”

He nods, letting his mouth ghost over the curve of her jaw and just underneath her right eye. “Something about the box. Thirty seconds.”

“I still have no idea what that means.”

“I know. That’s a work in progress.”

She leans away, back arching against his forearm and for one, horrifying, terrible moment, he is certain he’s fucked it all up again. Emma smiles. “Yeah,” she nods. “I think it might be.”

He kisses her first that time, a bit of alcohol and more laughter and they stay right there, sitting impossibly close at the bar until the guy with one-less in-tact glass tells them it’s last call.

—

“What are you so nervous about?” Will asks, bumping his shoulder into Killian’s and he keeps glancing in the stands. He’s got no idea what Emma’s son — Henry, his name is Henry and he’s ten and possibly a genius, if Emma has any say in it and he learned that somewhere around twenty minutes before last call and in between several text messages and they’ve been texting.

 _Texting_.

She took today off to come to the game. With her kid. And Mary Margaret’s summer camp.

“Nothing,” Killian says, far too quickly to be anything except a lie. Will stare at him incredulously.

“You want to try that again or…”

“The girl is here,” Robin answers. Killian glances skyward. Like that will help. “The one he’s been trying to act like he didn’t hit it off with.”

“Those words don’t make sense in that order,” Killian grumbles.

Will can’t seem to formulate any words. “Wait, wait. A girl. Like the girl you met this week? The one that clicked on you?”

“That’s the one,” Robin says, and Killian doesn’t have to look at him to hear the smile in his voice. It’s far too self-congratulatory.

He’s never been this nervous before a game in his life.

“Huh. Wow. That’s…we’re the best teammates in the world, huh?”

Robin makes a noise in the back of his throat. “It certainly does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Killian objects, tearing his eyes away from picture-perfect clouds and that’s probably not a sign. He kind of wants it to be. Maybe she couldn’t get there. Something about work. “And how did you know this was happening?”

“Aside from the look on your face?” Killian swings his stick at Robin’s ankle. “Oh my God, jeez-relax, it’s…Belle told me. But you can’t get annoyed at her. She just…she knew you’d be nervous.”

“I am not nervous.”

“Bad, bad, bad,” Will chants. “Horrifically bad. Game-changingly bad. Life-alteringly…”

Killian doesn’t hear the rest of the words, head on a swivel as soon as the sound of his own name echoes around him and she’s smiling. And waving. Smiling and waving with hair that is definitely some kind of scientific miracle and those words probably don’t go together either, but maybe that’s just how the world works now and—

“Do long-stick middies score goals, then?” Emma calls. She leans forward, draped over the rail at the end of the seats while a security guard tries to get her to move. She doesn’t.

This is not the most impressive professional sport in the world.

Killian laughs, well aware of the matching expressions on Will and Robin’s faces. “An attempt to impress will definitely be made.”

“Ok, good!” She mumbles something else to the security guard, moving back to an empty seat next to a kid who does, in fact, look like he’s got the potential to be a genius.

Will lets out a low whistle. “Wow, so when you guys get married, make sure you mention that we were the ones who—“ He doesn’t finish, quick steps backwards and head thrown back while he laughs, Killian’s stick swinging dangerously close to his left leg. “No, no, you can’t do that, you’re trying to impress your girlfriend.”

Killian stops. They haven’t gotten that far yet.

Maybe after the game.

And he’s not sure he’s ever taken that many shots, wide of the net and on net and one of them eventually will have to go in. He’s sure. It does. In the third quarter, down one, a game-tying goal that he knows is going to find that sliver of space just above the goalie’s shoulder as soon as he snaps his wrists.

The roar of the crowd isn’t really that, but Killian’s heart hammers like he’s getting several multi-million dollar endorsement deals out of this and it’s easier to find her that time.

“Nice shot,” Emma calls, an arm around Henry and a smile on Henry’s face and it’s surprisingly pleasant when his heart feels as if it does, in fact, explode. He winks.

A referee claps him on the back. “You want to get back to the circle, Jones? Or you got better things to do?”

He’s not really sure of his answer.

But the rest of the game goes by in a blur and a win and he dimly remembers Ariel saying something about the kids meeting with the team after. He’s still not entirely prepared, sweat clinging to the back of his neck and the ends of his hair, jersey plastered to his skin and most of his weight resting on his stick, excited voices and slightly confused by the rules voices and—

She doesn’t quite crash into him, but she jogs his direction and Killian’s legs don’t appreciate when he starts moving as well. He drops his stick.

And the whole thing is a little absurd, mostly because he’s so goddamn sweaty, although Emma’s laugh sounds perfect as soon as it makes its way to his ears, arms around his neck and her feet just barely touching the ground. He’s not sure who moves that time, is far too concerned with the end result anyway and if he can get her to consistently laugh and make _that_ noise as soon as he kisses her for like…possibly the rest of their lives, then maybe everything will be worth it.

“Impressed?”

She smiles against his mouth. “Not when you have to double check. I didn’t understand that one whistle though. Are people not allowed on the other side of the field?”

“That’s offsides.”

“I thought that was also soccer.”

“Swan, you’ve got to stop comparing this to soccer. It’s ten-thousand times better.”

“Ten-thousand?”

“At least.”

“It is,” another voice adds, and Killian knows his eyes widen. Emma laughs, soft and a return to nervous that’s not necessary because he’s far so gone already and—Henry’s smiling too. “Way more exciting than soccer. Plus, you get to hit people.”

Emma groans, head landing on Killian’s shoulder that time. “Kid, we talked about this. It’s a—“

“—Gray area,” Killian finishes. Henry does not look impressed. “You play lacrosse?”

Henry shakes his head. “Not yet. But, I uh…well, it does look kind of cool and your goal was good. Is it hard to shoot with that giant stick?”

“You want to try?”

The words are out of his mouth before he’s really thought of the implications of them, Emma’s eyebrows soaring. Henry looks half a second away from jumping up and down. “Swan,” Killian starts, an apology sitting on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t want to apologize. He wants to—swipe right and score and keep taking shots. Maybe a few more on net.

This metaphor is convoluted too.

“You sure?” she asks, and he hears it for what it actually is.

Killian nods. “Positive.”

She beams.

“So, uh…” Henry starts, eyes darting to the discarded stick every other second. “Can I shoot, then? How do I do it?”

“Yeah, of course,” Killian says. “C’mere. We’ll make Scarlet get in net so you’ve got something to aim at.”

They stay on the field for another thirty minutes, ignoring the few post-game obligations they have because this is really not the most stringent professional league in the world, sitting on turf with their legs stretched out while Henry peppers a vocally frustrated Will with on-target shots.

Emma’s hand lands on top of Killian’s at some point.

He laces his fingers through hers.

“You can only have so many people on one side of the field at a time,” he says. “Otherwise they’re offsides.”

“Got it. And so, uh—“ Emma scrunches her nose again, clicking her teeth a few times. “If I ask if we’re good with the number of people on the field right now is that embarrassingly lame?”

“Nah.”

“Was that an answer or…”

“We’re good, Swan,” Killian promises, and that time he doesn’t think about it. He pulls her hand up, lets his lips brush over her fingers and the goosebumps that explode on her skin are better than the goal. Ten-thousand times.

She doesn’t bite her lip. “Yeah, yeah, ok. I think so, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, as promised, this is, actually, the prompt @shireness-says asked for. I watched a lot of lacrosse yesterday. I promise, it's way more exciting than soccer. 
> 
> Feel free to come flail about anything, including what a bad rep lacrosse gets, on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/)


	6. A Rooting Interest

“Could I, uh—could I get a couple of waters, love?”

Emma blinks, startling at the voice and she can’t really believe she even heard him. Eventually, she will think that’s important. As it is, she’s mostly just surprised and absolutely exhausted and she’s got no idea why she agreed to this. 

For the money. 

And the friendship. 

Mostly the money. 

“Wait, what?”

The guy smiles. No, that’s not right either. He smirks, one side of his mouth tugging up in a move that’s far too self-confident and, she’s sure, regularly gets him more than a couple of waters. 

In a bar. 

He’s ordering waters in a bar.

“Are you going to tip for that?” Emma asks, forgoing common courtesy because she’s fairly certain it’ll get the smirk to disappear. It does not. It makes it more powerful, an additional eyebrow arch that could probably do damage to the Earth’s rotational rotation. 

Someone at the other end of the bar is yelling for her, a drink she’s never even heard of before and maybe she should have done research before agreeing to this. Ruby failed to mention that the patrons of her bar would be quite this…aggressive. 

Emma assumes it has something to do with the theme night they’re running. Throwback Thursday, which isn’t all that creative, but it’s not Emma’s bar and she’s seriously got no idea what the fuck an income tax is. At lest of the alcoholic variety. 

The irony of that name is not lost on her. 

And the guy is still doing that thing with his eyebrow. 

“Seriously,” Emma continues. “Also, couple is very arbitrary, don’t you think? Strictly speaking that’s just two.”

“I want more than two.”

“Than you want more than a couple, don’t you?”

He eyes her speculatively and Emma resists the urge to do something absurd. Like giggle. Or smile. A drink called an income tax must be fake. “Yeah, I guess I do,” the guy admits, fingers tugging lightly on the hair behind his ear. The tip of his tongue is pressing to the inside of his cheek. It’s horribly distracting. “And I’m going to tip.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been getting stiffed on tips tonight, love?”

“Ok, first of all, I am so far away from being your love, I am in a different stratosphere—“

“—Impressive you’re getting enough oxygen to inform me of that then.”

“Does this normally work for you?”

He lets out a laugh that’s really just more an elaborate exhale of that aforementioned oxygen and Emma kind of resents that she’s being charmed by this. She’s going to have to look up drink recipes. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a single conversation quite like this,” the guy admits. “Although I’ve never tried to order half a dozen waters at a bar either. Or been threatened by the bartender.”

“You’re being dramatic now.”

“And you're ignoring your clientele.”

Emma groans, head falling back with the force of it, but she can still make out the glint in the guy’s eyes and it’s a very intriguing kind of glint. She’s seventy-two percent positive she’s seen him before. 

Somewhere. 

He feels familiar. 

Maybe she’s kind of drunk. 

Off fumes. Or something. 

She exhales, far sharper than she intended, plastering a smile on her face and turning towards the other  _ other _ guy at the end of the counter, still shouting orders that she’s certain he’s making up. “An income tax, sweetheart,” he yells, and Emma’s whole soul bristles at that. The guy,  _ her guy _ , no, not that, narrows his eyes. “And a Hock Cobbler. A little quicker, if you don’t mind too.”

Emma’s eyes fly open, wide enough that they almost immediately start to water and this is not worth the tips she’s, kind of, getting. She’s not sure why she chances a glance to her left, but the water guy has moved his fingers away from his hair, head tilted in something that looks a little bit like repressed rage and it’s kind of—

“Hey,” he growls, turning slightly and he’s very…wide. His shoulders are much bigger than Emma realized at first, a solidness that probably shouldn’t be appealing because this is not her gig and Ruby will kill her if she lets a fight break out in her bar. 

On Throwback Thursday. 

It’s such a dumb name. 

She can’t take anything seriously with so much Britney Spears playing. 

“What the hell is your problem, man?”

The lack of names is starting to get confusing. Emma’s mind can’t process  _ guy  _ and  _ other guy _ and the second one is wearing far too much argyle. Maybe she’s just painfully unhip. 

Any thought of that disappears while the standoff continues, though, heavy stares and increasingly absurd glares and she’s going to give herself a headache if she keeps rolling her eyes like this. 

“Ok, you need to relax,” Emma says, leaning over the bartop to reach her hand out. Her guy flinches as soon as she brushes her fingers over the side of his wrist. “And, you,” she adds, turning her attention towards a guy who is starting to look far paler than he was a few seconds before, “need to come up with real drinks. I know you’re testing me because you think it’s hysterical. It’s not.”

He swallows, gaze flitting between her and the bar is still digging into her pancreas. She assumes that’s where her pancreas is. “You’re not usually here. Ruby always—“

Emma is going to hurt her throat. Her groan feels like it rumbles out of her, scratching its way up her esophagus and doing permanent damage to her tongue and the enamel on her teeth. That’s such a gross thought. 

She makes the noise anyway, letting her arms flail at her side in a misplaced attempt to work out any residual annoyance. 

And she’s going to shout several things at Ruby tomorrow. 

Once Ruby promises she feels better. 

Emma’s annoyed, but she’s not a total dick. 

“I am not Ruby,” she snaps, ignoring the feel of a rather pointed stare boring into the side of her head. “And I genuinely do not know how to make either one of the things you’re demanding, so unless you want something—“

“—A Hock Cobbler has wine in it,” her guy cuts in, and Emma’s eyes are never going to recover. “This claims Riesling. So, uh—“ He shrugs, and that smile is a bit more genuine. Helpful, even. “Then there’s sugar and an orange wheel. Sliced in half, apparently, but I doubt you’d actually have to do it like that.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Emma promises. It makes his smile widen. That probably shouldn’t feel like something. 

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, fighting off the first few signs of a tension headache at the base of her skull. He’s still smiling. The argyle guy looks a little repentant. 

“Can I just…get an orange slice?” he ventures, Emma’s answering laugh sounding absolutely insane. 

She nods. “Yeah, sure. And I’m not making that other one. I’ve got no idea what the fuck that is. You can complain to Ruby about it, if you want.”

“Can’t your boyfriend look that one up too?”

Maybe this whole night has been a dream. Maybe Emma is the one with a fever that’s kept her bedridden and unable to do anything except come up with very lucid visions where a man in a sweater she’s starting to find more and more offensive by the second makes sweeping proclamations and assumptions about her and another man that she’s already considered  _ hers _ more than once. 

She bites her lip. It bleeds. So, probably not a dream. 

And she can’t imagine she’d come up with eyes quite that blue. 

“Pick another drink,” Emma sneers, and he gets even paler. 

“Whisky sour?”

“Neat,” her guy amends. “No ice.”

The argyle guy grits his teeth, but he nods and drops a few bills in front of him. “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.”

“Sure it is,” Emma mutters. Her right knee cracks when she bends to grab glasses and bottles, pouring drinks she’s only a little hopeful are right and she swears her guy’s eyes get brighter when she actually uses that mixer thing-a-ma-bob. 

Maybe he knows the name of it. 

And the whole thing only takes a few moments, a line of condensation making the edges of the bills damp when Emma stuffs them into the back pocket of her jeans, but then the argyle guy is gone and her guy is still looking at her expectantly and—

“Oh, fuck, your water.”

His laugh makes his whole face change. She’s counting those. The changes and the expressions, hints of something Emma doesn’t dare give a name to because she doesn’t actually know his name and this is not her bar. She’d come up with better theme nights. 

“You really are the least tactful bartender I’ve ever encountered, you know that?”

Emma squeezes one of her eyes shut. “That’s because I’m not really a bartender. I’m just—“

“—Filling in for Ruby?” She must blink, can feel the bit of moisture in her eyes, but she's way too preoccupied with the oxygen that clearly is not getting to her lungs and she does not know enough about any words that end with  _ sphere _ to be making such scientific claims. “I do have ears, love. And the sweater man was rather adamant that Ruby would be more adventurous in her drink-making.”

“Still on the love thing, huh?”

“That’s what you got out of it?”

“What should I have gotten out of it?”

“My incredible listening skills and perceptive abilities.”

“Ah, of course.”

He flashes her another smile, and she’s going to run out of numbers to keep track of all of them, but this one leaves something in her stomach fluttering. It’s oddly pleasant. Warm. Like doing a shot of whisky. 

Neat. 

“And,” he adds, leaning forward slightly, “I’m not sure what else you expect me to say if you don’t tell me your name.”

Emma glances down to make sure she hasn’t actually self-combusted. She has not. It just feels that way. Her skin prickles, feeling and emotion that’s equal parts misplaced and inconvenient at the moment, because the bar is packed and Belle is going to report back to Ruby with detailed descriptions of everything that’s happened in the last ten minutes. 

The stare from the other side of the bar gets even more pointed. 

She’s probably taking notes. 

Or just live-texting the whole thing. 

“That was smooth,” Emma mutters, the fluttering growing when his eyes drop to her mouth. 

“Was it? I was hoping it would be.”

She giggles. Laughs.  _ Giggles _ . “It’s a little less when you have to double check, though.”

“And still not your name.”

“You’re kind of stubborn, you know that?”

“Determined.”

She considers it for a moment. She twists her lips and does her best to hold his gaze, still frustratingly blue and unblinking and—“Swan,” she answers. “My name is Emma Swan.”

He smiles. 

It’s blinding. 

It’s an absurd thought. 

She thinks it anyway. 

“Killian. I’m Killian Jones.”

And the fluttering turns into something closer to a pestering, a string of letters that feels annoyingly familiar, but Emma’s mind can’t latch onto the memory when this moment is flush with something almost akin to hope and a little bit like flirting. 

She didn’t know Britney Spears had this many songs. 

Emma thrusts her hand out, nearly punching Killian in the chest in the process. He’s still leaning over the bar. Belle’s thumbs have never moved that fast. 

And for a second Emma is bone-chillingly terrified that she’s made a mistake, hand hanging in the air and Killian’s eyes stuck on the slight bend of her index finger, but then he’s curling his own fingers around them and his thumb brushes exactly where her pulse thuds. 

“How did Ruby rope you into bartending on what appears to be a record-breaking night for—what’s the name of this place?”

Their hands are still wrapped together. 

“Do you not know the name of the bar you’re in?”

Killian shrugs, a quiet click of his tongue. “It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Scarlet wanted nachos.”

“Oh, the nachos are really good. Granny’s got some kind of salsa recipe that’s like—well, it’s won awards.”

“He was quick to mention that when googling the best nachos in Boston.”

“It a very specific search.”

Killian shrugs again, running his free hand through his hair. Probably because that one strand is apparently determined to fall in his eyes. And drive Emma crazy. She hasn’t moved in forever. She’s not going to get any tips. “Yeah,” he says slowly, “that’s, uh…well superstition, I guess. Maybe something trying to resemble control.”

“For nachos?”

“I don’t think he realized it’d be so crowded here.”

“It’s Throwback Thursday.”

“I read the signs.”

“And I think there’s something happening at the Garden,” Emma adds, only a little stunned by what  _ this  _ expression does. Killian’s whole body tenses, every one of the many muscles in his face going taut. She can tell because she’s staring at his face. Emma lowers her eyebrows. “Right? That’s…it’s like a playoff thing or something.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

He says it so quietly Emma barely hears the words, but they somehow still manage to rattle around in her brain and take up residence in every inch of her consciousness and—

“Wait, what?”

“We’re going in circles, Swan.” She scowls, not sure if they’re at that point in their relationship, but that’s an entirely different word for a situation she doesn’t have time for. “It’s tomorrow,” Killian repeats, a bit more conviction that time. “Game Six.”

“Should those words make sense in that order?”

“Maybe not.”

“Wow,” she breathes, “that’s…very secretive.”

Some of his muscles unclench, tongue flicking between his lips. “Not on purpose. It’s just…you didn’t know?”

Emma makes a noise in the back of her throat, pouring another drink she only sort of hears the order for. “Is that basketball, then?”

“Oh my God.”

“I’m going to take that as a no.”

“No,” Killian echoes. “Hockey. Game Six. The Bruins can win tomorrow.”

“Win…”

“If I say oh my God again are you going to throw that water I never actually got at me?”  She rolls her eyes. There’s no sign of a headache anymore. “Tomorrow is Game Six of the Eastern Conference  Finals. Boston can win.”

“And that’s a good thing, right? I mean we’re in Boston.”

“Depends on who ask.”

Emma has always been very good at reading people. It helps in her real-life job, bails bonds and finding liars and cheats and she’s very good at listening for the lie in every single syllable she hears. It’s not in those ones. There’s just conviction and that same hope she'd been feeling and—“Ok,” she says. “So what do you say, then? Good or bad?”

“Bad.”

“Why?”

He blushes. She doesn’t expect that. She’s got no idea what to do with that. Probably think about it on loop for the rest of the night. “I’ve got a very good feeling about the other guys.”

“That so?”

“Yeah,” Killian nods, fingers reaching back behind his ear again. it’s a tell. Emma’s pulse is going to beat out of her. Also gross. She focuses on the color in his cheeks instead. “Just a hunch.”

“You sound awfully confident.

He shakes his head, that piece of hair falling forward again and it takes a power Emma did not know she possessed to stop herself from brushing it away. “Cautiously optimistic. It’s really only a matter of time before the Rangers get their shit together on the power play.”

“Right.”

“Unfamiliar with the concept of a power play, huh?”

“What gave me away?”

“My incredible listening skills and perceptive abilities.”

Her smile is so wide and so immediate that Emma is briefly concerned for the state of her cheeks. And her heart. Mostly her heart. “I think you’re also pretty optimistic about the state of your joke-cracking ability.”

“Nah, I’m confident about that.”

Emma’s teeth find her lower lip, Belle calling for something that sounds like a  _ Harvey Wallbanger, Em, like, now _ and her eyes dart towards Killian’s on something that may almost be instinct. 

And want. 

Seriously, the state of her heart is in dire peril. 

He tugs his phone back out of his pocket. “I think we can figure it out, Swan.”

* * *

There are, apparently, several different versions of Britney Spears’ greatest hits and Killian Jones, who does not move away from the bar for the next three hours of Emma Swan’s life, knows every single word to Lucky. It is impossibly endearing.

Maybe she should cover for Ruby more often. 

He looks up more drinks for her, obscure concoctions that leave her mumbling curses under her breath and his smile appears to be permanently etched on his face. He never gets nachos. The table in the corner tries to pull him away more than once, but he waves a hand over this shoulder and the voice Emma assumes is Scarlet gives up after attempt, like, five. 

Scarlet does, in fact, get nachos. 

And she’s got no idea what time it actually is, but Emma’s cautiously optimistic that she’s got, at least, a few more hours when—

“Jones,” Scarlet calls, “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Killian grits his teeth, glaring at open air in front of him. The crowd has, somehow, gotten larger because, apparently, the youth of today like to go out at eleven o’clock at night, but Emma had been enjoying herself and—

“Seriously, Jones, now. Or we’re going to get our asses handed to us as soon as they realize.”

“Shut up, Scarlet,” Killian sneers, not moving an inch. His eyes flash towards Emma, doubt creeping into her mind and messing with her perception of things. 

The music sounds more autotuned than usual. 

“You’ve got to go?”

He shakes his head, but Scarlet yells again and he ordered nachos to go too. “He does,” Scarlet says. “We should have left, like, fifteen minutes ago, but he was staring longingly and—“

“—Alright,” Killian interrupts. He snaps around, a quick movement that Emma can’t quite process either. It looks impossibly….athletic. HIs tongue moves again, grazing over the front of still-barred teeth and his top lip, a soft sigh that sounds far too regretful for a few hours. “I’ve got to go, Swan.”

She nods slowly, not entirely sure what’s going on. “Is Scarlet the nacho guy, like…your keeper or something?”

One of the other guys with them laughs uproariously, body convulsing with the force of it. It draws the attention of the crowd, curious glances and heads that twist back and forth, more than a few of them looking like they know what’s happening. 

That’s annoying. 

“It’s usually the other way around,” the laughing guy says. “This is a very weird change of pace.”

“We’re hoping that’s a good sign,” Scarlet adds.

Emma bites her lip again. “Right, right, that’s not foreboding at all.”

“It’s not that, love,” Killian promises, a return to endearments that suddenly aren’t all that abrasive. 

“The concept of asses being handed out is a little menacing.”

“Only when you put it that way.”

“And how would you put it, exactly?”

He seems to consider his answer for a second, gaze turning thoughtful and he’s definitely getting closer. Emma also kind of resents the counter between them. “Like I really have to go.”

“Now, Jones,” Will screeches, voice cracking on the last few letters. “I’m not getting killed tomorrow because you want to keep making eyes.”

“This was your idea!”

“We never got our water.”

“That is true,” Emma admits, a little half-heatedly because she’d seen Belle go over to the table when it became obvious she was too busy flirting. Well. Kind of. No, definitely. 

She’s good at finding the lies, not telling them. 

“They’ll survive,” Killian mumbles. His fingers flutter at his side, a movement that all but yanks Emma’s gaze, like he’s trying to stop himself from moving his arm or—“You live in Boston, right?”

“Was that not obvious?”

The blush is seriously a lot for her to deal with. 

She’s not entirely sure is, actually, dealing with it. 

Scarlet sounds like he’s dying. 

“Yeah, yeah, it was,” Killian stammers, a look that’s almost as good as the blush. And, eventually, Emma will blame both that one strand of hair and whatever his eyes do when they drop to her lips again, but really it’s neither one of those things and the counter probably punctures her pancreas when she jerks forward. 

Worth it. 

Her fingers curl around the front of his t-shirt, a blue that’s also a little familiar, like she’s seen it in an ad somewhere, but the thought disappears as soon as Killian’s lips finds hers and Emma absolutely hates that she groans. 

She tries not to. 

She does. 

But it’s just…as far as first kisses go, it’s pretty goddamn perfect. Even with the threat of injury to her internal organs. 

She lets her eyes flutter shut, more than content to linger in the moment and the feel of his fingertips ghosting over her cheek. It’s not smooth, a roughness to his touch that’s impossibly grounding when she feels like she’s flying and Emma swears she can feel him smile when she tilts her head. Her nose squishes, a move that’s less than dignified, but it’s also the middle of Throwback Thursday and If You Seek Amy is blasting from several different speakers. 

They break apart. They come back together. Her fingers threaten to cramp, going tighter when Killian’s tongue brushes over the seam of her mouth and Emma can feel his hand cupping the back of her head, trying to keep her there or, possibly, just yank her over the bar. 

That might scandalize Ruby. 

This is somehow Ruby’s fault. 

Emma’s whole…soul is staring to spin, like she’s flying off an axis or getting hit out of the park and that’s not an appropriate sports analogy. She thinks they’re playing baseball now too. 

And she can’t actually bring herself to move away when they do, finally, part, both of them breathing just a bit heavier. She lets her forehead rest on his, lips pressed together and shoulders shaking and—

“Whoa,” Killian breathes, which is also kind of endearing and entirely unexpected and Emma might laugh. 

She’s dimly aware of making a sound. 

And saying words. 

“So, uh…you’re not from Boston, then?” He shakes his head, disappointment slinking down her spine like a variety of weights and anvils and if she was threatening to explode before, then she’s dangerously close to cracking now, bits of want and the threat of hope and those few words should not go together. “Figures,” Emma mumbles. 

“Swan, it’s, uh, it’s not like—“

“—You better go before Scarlet starts throwing chairs.”

“He won’t chance it. It’d draw too much attention and we’re—“

“Leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

Emma hums. Her arms have gone numb. That may be because her fingers are still holding onto his shirt. “Well,” she says, doing her best to keep her voice even. Belle is staring again. “Thanks for um…” It doesn’t work. That’s annoying. “Thanks for all the help with the drinks and the, uh—“

She waves a hand in the minimal space between them, a pitiful attempt at miming what may be the greatest kiss she’s ever had. Bar none. 

“A good one-time thing, right? Makes for a good story.”

“Swan…

“Killian if we don’t go now, I’m going to make sure you sleep in the hallway,” Scarlet threatens, already halfway out the door and Emma’s smile is insulting. To, like, the world. 

“You better go,” Emma says. “Don’t want to break curfew.” HIs eyebrows fly off his face. Metaphorically. It’s impressive all the same. “And if you’re not careful, your face’ll freeze like that.”

He sighs out a laugh, ducking his head quickly enough that Emma isn’t sure it actually happens. Her lip are tingling. 

She’s going to drink all of Ruby’s alcohol. 

“I’ll see you later, Swan,” Killian says, and she’s not sure why it sounds like the absolute truth, leaving her standing stock-still behind a bar that isn’t hers with drink orders coming at her from every angle. 

* * *

“What?”

“Well, that’s some way to greet me,” Ruby says, sounding far healthier than she did the night before. “Shouldn’t I be annoyed with you?”

Emma gags, flipping onto her back and glaring at her ceiling. She’d spent several hours doing that the night before, not sure when she did, actually, fall asleep, but there’s sunlight pouring through her curtains now and—“It’s, like, two in the afternoon, Em,” Ruby supplies. 

Emma makes another noise. 

“I got some very interesting information about last night,” Ruby continues, seemingly unperturbed by any sense of conversational propriety. Or friendship. Emma may be the shitty friend in this scenario. “I believe the word smitten was used several times.”

“I have never been smitten in my life.”

“The nacho guy claimed you were making eyes.”

“The nacho guy had anger issues, I think we should take his word with a grain of salt. Plus, I don’t think they actually left a tip and that’s just a dick move, so—“

Emma shakes her head, letting out a shuddering breath that’s rife with…several very depressing adjectives. And, really, she’s not sure why she’s harping on this, but she did think it was kind of a dick move and she isn’t sure she considers particularly fantastic makeouts to be equivalent to, like, ten bucks. 

“No, they did,” Ruby interrupts sharply. It is impressive that Emma nearly falls off the bed. “Like. A freaking awesome one.”

“Freaking awesome.”

“Oh, shut up. You could have gotten arrested for public indecency last night.”

“Someone would have had to call that in,” Emma points out, “and I think Belle was way too focused on updating you.”

Ruby sighs. “And you probably know too many people in—what precinct is that?”

“That is not the point.”

“True. Because the point is your very good looking dude with exceptional hair—“

“—Who said he had exceptional hair?”

“I did, did you not just hear me?”

“How did you know that?”

“Ok, several things,” Ruby says, obviously trying not to laugh too loudly. That doesn’t work either. “If you think Belle did not send covert pictures of the guy you were mooning over all night, then you don’t know anything about her. Second of all, did you not think he had exceptional hair? And—“

“—Oh my God, how is there more?”

“Third of all. I walked into the bar today to find an envelope stuck under the door.”

“That is menacing.”

“Stop interrupting her,” Belle calls, voice barely audible because it sounds like it’s coming from the back room. “There’s no menace. There’s just…romance, maybe.”

Emma blinks. At her ceiling. “Maybe?”

“Likely,” Ruby corrects. “Because the envelope was addressed to you and would you like to guess what was inside?”

“No.”

“God, you’re no fun at all.”

“What was in the envelope?”

“A note that said, and I’m quoting here, Swan, hopefully it was more than a one-time thing. Plus, two tickets to the hockey game at the Garden tonight.”

Emma’s blinks turn hyperactive. She can’t stop. She blinks and blinks and nothing changes, the ceiling staying exactly the same as it has since she first started staring at it and—“Game Six?”

“Why do you know that?”

“Oh, you didn’t get those updates from your mole, huh?” Emma mutters, but she can’t quite get the question to sound as insulting as she wants. Ruby scoffs. 

“Please, I got everything that happened in the bar last night in painstaking detail. What I did not expect was for you to know the terminology. You want to sell ‘em?”

“What?”

“You just said it, Em. Game Six. I think the Bruins can win tonight or something? I bet people’d pay through the nose for that.”

“A lovely sentiment,” Emma murmurs, mind racing and part of her wants to. Part of her thinks it’d be a good idea, certainly more money than she made in tips the night before and catching assholes on the street was always an  _ up in the air  _ kind of business. 

She could probably make a pretty good profit on the tickets. 

“Nah,” she says, pleasantly surprised by how much she means it. “That’s—what do you know about hockey?”

Emma swears she can hear Ruby’s answering grin. “Less than nothing. This is going to be fun.”

* * *

It takes Emma less than four full seconds inside TD Garden to decide that a yellow and black color scheme is very abrasive.

And the people waiting to go through a copious amount of metal detectors are all very loud. 

“Do you know where we’re supposed to go?”

“These are your tickets,” Ruby reasons. “Didn’t your guy tell you where to meet him?”

“What? No, that’s—“

Ruby narrows her eyes. “Wait, I’m very confused. Are we not meeting hair guy?”

“Come up with a different name for him.”

“What is his name?”

“Killian Jones.” One of the people near them jerks to a stop, glaring at Emma with enough venom that she holds her hands up instinctively. “Ok, relax,” she mumbles. “Go buy an overpriced beer.”

The guy — wearing a jersey, of course — mutters a few words, a sneer to his lips that makes Emma reconsider everything that’s happened int he last twenty-four hours. 

“So, that was weird, right?” Ruby asks, Emma humming in agreement. Her heart’s hammering against her ribs, a sudden influx of anxiety and the certainty that she’s missing something. Big. “You think your guy is going to be that weird during the game?”

“Seriously, stop calling him that.”

Ruby makes a contrary noise, expression turning almost predatory, but then there’s an usher and they have to show their tickets and—

“Oh, uh,” the kid, he’s at least twenty, stutters, looking anywhere except Emma and Ruby like meeting their gaze will turn him to stone. “You can’t go in this way.”

Emma’s starting to hate hockey. “What does that mean?”

The usher nods toward an elevator, another security guard who, somehow, looks fancier and Ruby may actually cackle the entire game. “That’s your entrance,” the usher explains. “It’ll go right up to the suite.”

“Oh shit,” Ruby breathes, and that’s about all there is to say about that. 

Emma’s legs feel like lead, far too heavy when she takes the first step forward and there are only a few buttons in the elevator. There’s another security guard sitting in the corner. 

“Team suite, right?” she asks brightly, and Emma can’t answer. She’s going into shock. Maybe it’s a latent response from her pancreas. 

She really needs to stop thinking things like that. 

And the ride seems to last forever and end far too suddenly, a quick stop that makes Emma clench her jaw. Ruby is still laughing. 

“Enjoy the game,” the security guard says, even more kindness and a knowing smile and—

“Fucking hell,” Emma mutters. She takes a shaky step forward, moving into a hall with framed pictures and ornate door handles and the carpet is gorgeous. That’s also a very weird thought. 

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Ruby says. “Do they play hockey in Kansas?”

“I have no idea.”

The door at the far end of the hall swings open, another smiling face and a jersey with a distinctly different color scheme. The woman that leans around the frame has kind eyes and short hair and Emma isn’t sure why she trusts her suddenly and innately, but that may be a recent theme and—

“Are you Emma?”

“You’re famous,” Ruby mumbles. She groans when Emma doesn’t respond, a quick shake of her head and a few steps forward, taking the woman’s outstretched hand like they’re old friends. “That is Emma, yeah. And I’m Ruby. You are…”

“Oh, right, right, I’m Mary Margaret Nolan. David’s wife.”

Ruby glances over her shoulder. “Do we know a David?”

Emma shrugs. “I think I may be dreaming.”

Mary Margaret looks confused. That’s fair. Emma has no idea what the hell is going on. Again. Also a theme. “Oh, he didn’t actually say anything did he?” she muses, a soft laugh when she approaches Emma. Like she’s a wounded animal. “Killian has a habit of erring on the side of dramatic,” Mary Margaret adds, “but, from what I heard, he was—“

“—Smitten?” Ruby suggests. 

“Enthralled. And I’m sure if things were a little more normal and he wasn’t, you know…”

Emma shakes her head, not sure if she’s trying to brush away thoughts or rattle pieces of understanding into place. It doesn’t matter because none of it makes sense. “What jersey are you wearing?”

“David’s. I thought that would be kind of obvious when I said we were married.”

“Yuh huh.”

“David Nolan? He’s a center for the Rangers.”

“Yuh huh.”

“You really didn’t know?”

Emma’s lips have gone dry. She’s breathing very heavily. “I thought they were playing basketball here tonight.”

Mary Margaret lets out a tinkling laugh, enthusiastic and something close to adorable, but decidedly  _ not _ pitying and Emma does her best to breathe like a normal human. They’re making announcements on the ice. 

Where they’re going to play a hockey game.

And Killian is—

“The captain of the Rangers,” Mary Margaret says, answering a question Emma hasn’t bothered to ask. “Very good. Very popular. Super into you, actually. And an idiot.”

“Do those last two things go together?”

Mary Margaret rolls her eyes, not looking entirely surprised. “Like I said, a flair for the dramatic. I’m sure it was easier to get tickets here and he probably thought you’d have more fun with us than—“

“—Fans of a team he’s not playing for.”

“Exactly.”

“Ok,” Emma says slowly, and the pieces are starting to settle a bit. “I have no idea how hockey works.”

“Yeah, I gathered that. That’s ok. As long as you can cheer for the blue jerseys we’ll be good.”

“Deal.”

* * *

“Oh, fuck,” Emma gasps, and that is not the first time she’s done that. She thinks the game is almost over, but she’s only recently overcome her embarrassment at calling what is apparently intermission  _ halftime _ , so she doesn’t want to ask anymore idiotic questions. 

Her hands fly to her face, trying to cover her eyes at the same time she watches the game and the game, it seems, is very violent. 

“Do they normally hit each other that much?”

Mary Margaret nods. “A little more tonight since they can win and we’re getting kind of desperate.”

“And there’s—“ Emma’s eyes flit towards the questionably large scoreboard hanging above them. “—ten minutes left?”

Another nod. Mary Margaret’s gaze hasn’t left the ice since whatever the name of this last part of the game actually started. “So, um…what happens if they don’t score? Does it just—“

“—Don’t say anything,” Mary Margaret snaps, a hint of actual negativity in her voice. Emma blinks. “Sorry, sorry,” she adds, “that’s just…we don’t say those kinds of words. It’s a jinx.”

“The hair guy should have written down rules when he left Em the tickets,” Ruby mumbles. She’s curled in one of the very large seats the team suite offers, a cup in her hand. 

It’s not her first either. 

The cups seem to be refilling themselves. 

“He definitely should have,” another voice, someone introduced as Elsa, agrees. “But Will said he was having a hard enough time getting out of the bar last night and—oh, shit, go!” 

She jumps up, hands flailing and feet barely landing before they’re bobbing on the impeccably clean carpet again. And Emma’s just about to ask  _ what is going on _ , but the question gets caught in her throat and weighs down her tongue and, well, it’s obvious. 

Emma jumps up too. 

Her hands move to her cheeks, not sure what else to do with them and covering them up seems somewhere in the realm of idiotic because she desperately wants to see every single thing that happens. 

Because what is happening appears to be life-changingly important. 

He’s very fast, she notices that immediately, a streak of blue and the ability to push off his skates without falling over that she assumes is pretty run-of-the-mill for professional hockey players. Emma is impressed anyway. 

And she can, somehow, hear the puck hit his stick over the din of a crowd that is personally offended by the same sound, a move and something Elsa calls a  _ juke _ under her breath and Emma can’t figure out how his hands keep shifting like that. 

There’s probably a name for it. 

She’ll look it up later. 

As it is, Emma’s eyes are locked on the jersey and the frustratingly familiar curve of his shoulders, hunched slightly while he tries to pick up speed and weave through a color scheme she’s really starting to hate. 

Sports are weird. 

“Shoot, shoot, shoot,” Mary Margaret chants, but Killian doesn’t listen. He waits, bides his time and shifts his hands again, a flip of his stick and turn of his skates that would absolutely break Emma’s ankles and—

“Shot,” Emma yells. 

He does. She thinks that’s a sign. 

And the light behind the net goes off, a groan she can almost see moving across the crowd. Until it gets to the New York Rangers team suite. Which promptly explodes, cries and shouts and arms thrust in the air. 

Killian spins out, and, reasonably, Emma knows she cannot see the smile on his face, but her mind doesn’t care and it might have been romantic and a Nolan jersey slams into his chest as soon as he collides with what Mary Margaret kept calling  _ the glass _ . 

Emma gasps. 

Mary Margaret’s eyes flit towards Elsa. 

“Shit, that was impressive,” Ruby mutters, drawing a laugh out of several people and Emma doesn’t move. She keeps staring and watching and he doesn’t look up. 

He doesn’t. 

She knows. 

She does not care. 

She hopes. 

And starts counting down the seconds. 

* * *

The Rangers win Game Six at TD Garden. 

Emma has no idea what happens next. 

* * *

A woman with red hair and a Rangers-branded polo appears in the team suite, approximately, ten seconds after the game ends. “Hey, M’s, hey, Els,” she smiles, like this is old hat and, Emma supposes, it is.

For them. 

“Ms. Swan?”

Ruby snickers. 

“Emma, is fine.”

The woman keeps smiling. “Yeah, I figured, but he kept calling you Swan, so I wasn’t sure if this was some weird thing.”

“Ariel,” Mary Margaret chastises. The smile doesn’t waver. “Killian is probably going to be stuck in media for a little while,” she explains, “but if A is here, then he also probably wanted to see if you would come down.”

Emma blinks. “Down?“

“To the locker room,” Ariel says. “Once they’re done with post, they’ll head to Logan, but there’s a couple of minutes on the schedule for family and, uh—“

“Yeah, ok,” Emma agrees, cutting in before things can start getting named. She’d almost like to name it. 

And a few explanations. 

“Let’s go to the locker room, then.”

Ruby has to keep her hand over her mouth the entire elevator ride. 

* * *

By Emma’s, admittedly, nerve-riddled count, it takes Killian Jones approximately twelve minutes and forty-two seconds to be finished with whatever media obligations he has. 

He walks into the holding room they’ve been led to, which is not the right name,  _ at all _ , but Emma is having a hard time processing all of this again and his hair is still wet. 

“Hey,” he says, sounding a little stunned. She gets that. 

“Hey.”

“Well,” Ruby nods pointedly, “This is—you do have very nice hair, Belle was right.”

Killian tilts his head. “Should that make sense?”

“No, but why should you be the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on? You go back to New York now, right?”

“Yuh huh.”

“It’s probably pointless to threaten you, isn’t it?”

“Who are you?”

“She’s going to say your worst nightmare,” Emma mumbles, Ruby growling when she ruins the joke. It’s not a joke. 

“Well, not now that you’ve done it, Em.”

Emma shrugs. Killian’s neck should not be stuck that way. “I have no idea what’s happening,” he admits. “Swan, did you—“

“—Oh, I did,” Emma interrupts, and, it seems, they’re doing this. Ruby makes some excuse about leaving. Before adding  _ worst nightmare _ with a glare she’s been practicing for years. 

Killian grimaces, digging the heel of his sandal into another very impressive carpet. “This is not what it looks like.”

“And what do you think it looks like?”

“Like I was…lying to you. I wasn’t.”

“Just withholding some pretty important information,” Emma says. “Was there a reason you didn’t want to mention that you were a professional hockey player?”

She can see every single one of his teeth. 

“Oh, don’t say it like that, love. It sounds like a death sentence.”

“If they keep hitting you like that, maybe.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Emma makes a noise never before created by a living, breathing human. She’s got no idea what she does with her hands. And Killian’s sigh sounds impossibly loud, fingers running through damp strands of hair. 

There’s a drop of water on his temple. 

“I gasped, just like…way too many times,” she mutters, not sure when she actually decides to start taking a step forward. “Mary Margaret probably thinks I’m crazy.”

“Mary Margaret has never had a negative thought about anyone.”

“Eh, she did call you an idiot when I got to the team suite.”

He squeezes an eye closed, hand twisting at his side. Trying to stop himself from touching her. Again. Emma rests both her palms on his chest. 

“That was probably warranted,” Killian says. His fingers are warm when they curl around her wrist. “I just—ok, this is a string of increasingly absurd events.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. It’s really Scarlet’s fault.”

“How do you figure?”

“I told you, Swan. He wanted nachos. I’ve—“ He chuckles, and the exhale he lets out when Emma brushes that one strand of hair away from his brows feels like another win. She thinks it’s called a series. “I have known Will Scarlet for the better part of the last five years and I’ve never once seen the asshole eat a single tortilla chip, but last night he said it was a  _ thing _ and he’d eaten nachos before he won a national championship and—“

“—How many games are you trying to win?”

“This was college.”

“Ah.”

Killian grins. And for one insane second Emma thinks he’s going to kiss her again, or she’s going to kiss him, another flicker of eyes that spend far too long on her lips, but then the moment is passing and his thumb brushes over her wrist. “He said it was good luck. Got him the Hobey Baker, which is just…it’s insane, but athletes are usually insane and—“

“—Yeah, I’m staring to realize that, actually.”

“Oh, that sounded like an insult too, love.”

“There it is again.” He should just look at whoever he plays next. Emma’s sure they’ll all be distracted by the absurd color of his eyes. That may just be her. “Ok, so let me get this straight. Will Scarlet who is also a professional hockey player on your professional hockey team wanted nachos last night. He, as you said, googled Ruby’s bar, realized Granny won awards and you all…”

“Walked three blocks from the hotel.”

“Right. And then you—“

“—Drew the very lucky straw to go request water.”

“I don’t think that’s how the colloquialism works, actually.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“You’re trying to be charming.”

He grins. It’s honest. And disarming. They must be running out of post-game time. “Is it working?”

“Kind of,” Emma admits. “Why the water, though?”

“We’re not going to drink in the middle of the season. That’s against the rules.”

“You never got your water, though.”

Killian hums, a quick nod. “I got distracted.”

“Oh that was a line too.”

“No, that was the truth.”

And it is. Emma can tell. She can feel it. She’s not used to romance. It’s really nice. “Why do you know all the words to Lucky by Britney Spears?”

“You didn’t have to clarify who sang the song.”

“That’s a deflection.”

“True,” he agrees. “And while Scarlet apparently enjoyed nachos during his college hockey years, I spent my freshman season skating blue lines while my coach played the entire Britney Spears discography.”

“Why?”

“He said it built character. I think his daughter had been a big fan, so he felt like if he had to live it, so did we. He was a weird guy. And the rhythm of some of the songs was actually pretty good to skate to.”

Emma’s laugh bubbles out of her, as easy it had the night before, and she can hear Ariel’s footsteps coming towards them. “I had fun last night, Swan,” Killian says. “And that doesn’t—well, did you?”

“Why are you looking for confirmation?”

“Pad my ego.”

Her head falls onto his chest, neck not quite able to contend with the force of how clearly charmed she is. “That’s so lame,” Emma mumbles, mostly into his shirt and she can’t be sure if what she feels on her temple is, actually, his lips. She hopes it is. “Yeah, I had fun. I just—did you not want to tell me? Was the professional hockey thing a secret?”

“You don’t have to keep bringing up the professional aspect.”

“But that’s your job”

“Exactly,” Killian says, hand moving to cup Emma’s cheek. “It’s a job, Swan. And I love playing. I do. But a lot of time people know and—this was not some kind of elaborate hoax. There was no secret meaning. It was just…I had fun. Talking to you. Not getting water from you. And I didn’t want it to be a one-time thing.”

She sighs. Again. In romance. And swooning. 

So, really, the only thing she  _ can _ do is press up on her toes, push her fingers into Killian Jones, professional hockey player’s hair, and kiss the everliving daylights out of him. 

Obviously.

He groans that time. 

It’s another win. 

“That was smooth,” Emma murmurs, not bothering to move her mouth away from Killian’s. He does not seem to mind. 

“Something about ice, probably.”

“Oh, God, I take it back.”

“Too late, Swan,” he says. “That’s been documented for the record and it’s on it’s way to print.”

“Are you a giant nerd, is that why you didn’t want to brag about the hockey thing?”

“Nah.”

And she knows that’s another bit of honesty, a quiet admission of want and hope and one-time thing was idiotic. The axises have been irreparably altered. 

In a way that is fantastic. 

“That was a good move,” Emma adds. “I mean…I have no idea what you’d call it, but I was impressed.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Forehand,” Killian says. “I shot on my forehand.”

“Ah, well, maybe I’ll get used to the technical terms eventually.”

“Good.”

They rock into each other’s space again, an arm around Emma’s waist and her nails scratching against the back of his head, more tongue and open mouths and Ariel must cough several times before either one of them pays any attention to her. 

“So we’re good, then?” she asks. “You’re not going to sue us?”

Emma clicks her teeth. “Were you anticipating being sued?”

“I’m not sure how the stalking laws work in Boston, but I was nervous we were getting way too close to them for comfort.”

“Oh my God,” Killian grumbles. His arm tightens when Emma laughs. 

“No,” she says. “You weren’t very close. No suit. But, uh…maybe a phone number?”

Killian kisses her. She assumes that’s an answer. 

And she’s just about to fall asleep, eyelids fluttering and adrenaline still humming in her veins when her phone dings. 

**Landed. Still looking for a few more moves on the power play, but pretty confident in our ability to pull off a win in Game Seven.**

_ That for the record? _

**Absolutely.**

* * *

There’s a box outside her door the next morning.

It’s a jersey. 

It’s his jersey. 

She wears it to the bar two days later. 

The Rangers win. 

* * *

And it goes from there, an understanding of the technical terms and how the Stanley Cup Finals work, quiet conversations after curfew because that’s actually the name for it, and Emma gasps more than she probably should, but then she’s driving to New York and pacing around Mary Margaret in a different team suite and she doesn’t think she takes that jersey off for the entire series. 

They don’t win. 

Which is probably more disappointing for someone who does, actually, understand what icing is, but Killian’s eyes find Emma’s as soon as he walks out of the locker room. 

“You want to get out of here?” she asks, his nod sinking into her and finding a space directly next to her heart. “I know how to make some really obscure drinks.”

Killian laughs, a quick kiss pressed to her cheek. The skin is a little damp. That’s not as embarrassing as she expected it to be. “I’d love that, Swan.”

“Good.”

* * *

She figures out what icing is eventually. And she can probably drive the trip from Boston to New York with her eyes closed, but that isn’t always necessary and, sometimes, they play in Boston.

Emma loves those games. 

She doesn’t gasp as much next season, text messages and more conversations, video chats and the same jersey that always makes Killian’s eyes widen slightly whenever he sees her in it. 

That’s her favorite kind of win. 

And it’s the postseason again, Emma behind the bar with the game on the screen and Ruby’s laugh ringing in the air around her. She’s still wearing the jersey. 

She hasn’t taken the jersey off all series. 

It’s good luck. 

“Can I get a Death in the Afternoon?”

Emma jerks her head up to find herself face to face with argyle sweater guy, his eyes wide and jaw threatening to crack the tiles on the floor. “You,” she says, but he doesn’t respond. His gaze darts from the TV to the jersey she’s going to have to replace soon and Emma’s got some ideas about that, anyway. Hopes, maybe. “What the hell kind of drink is that?”

He closes his mouth. Only to open it again, but then he’s the one gasping and Ruby is shouting and Emma spins in just enough time to see Killian Jones, professional hockey player and her  _ boyfriend _ , moving up the ice, the puck on his stick and defenders in his wake. 

“Shoot,” Emma yells. 

He does. Always. 

It goes in. That doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s enough of a percentage that Emma’s starting to feel pretty confident about this series. 

“So, uh…” argyle sweater says slowly, and Emma twists to find him as pale as she remembers. “Boyfriend, huh?”

“Yup.”

“And that was him before?”

“Also yup.”

“Huh.”

“I’m not making that drink.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

The Rangers win the game. And the series. And make it back to the Stanley Cup Finals, Emma standing in the team suite at a Garden that feels more like home than hers and he probably doesn’t look up at her. 

She doesn’t care. 

Killian tilts his head towards the box, smile obvious and—

The game goes quickly. And slowly. It’s an impossibility that seems like the subhead of her life at this point. 

On the record. 

Because they win. 

Emma’s feet don’t skid when she, finally, steps onto the ice, but then there’s an arm around her waist and lips ghosting over her neck and—

“I love you,” she breathes, and she can  _ hear _ that smile. 

Killian leans back, eyes the same color as his goddamn jersey and his smile stretches across his face as soon as Emma brushes strands of hair from his forehead. “I love you, too, Swan.”

They take pictures with the Stanley Cup. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for how long this got. That's just...how I operate. And I wrote this instead of being annoyed that I don't care about tonight's Game Six. I miss the Rangers. 
> 
> Feel free to come flail about anything, including, but not limited to playoff hockey, on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/)


	7. Four Eyes

Honestly, the whole thing is kind of Hope’s fault.

And Emma does, in fact, realize that blaming her six-year-old is a little absurd and, overall, kind of rude, but well, it is.

Because Hope cannot see the blackboard.

Emma’s mom mentions it one night, an off-handed comment about squinting eyes and their tendency to cause headaches and bad grades and _it might not be a bad idea to make an appointment_ and Emma hadn’t even realized there was an optometrist in Storybrooke, but apparently Victor knows a guy and the guy is from the Land of Untold Stories and--

Hope gets glasses.

From Dr. Eckleburg.

Who is actually a very nice man. He doesn’t mention the diminishing returns of the American dream once.

And that’s also kind of absurd, but Emma’s been running on metaphorical fumes for a week and she has got to find someone else to blame for all of this besides her six-year-old.

She can’t. Because her six-year-old really did need glasses and that required an eye exam with Dr. Eckleburg and that eye exam ended with Killian squinting at a slightly antiquated sheet of paper with letters he also couldn’t read.

“Who could even see these?” he mutters, leaning against the wall of the room with his feet crossed at the ankles. Hope’s perched on Emma’s legs, her lips twisted into something that feels far too familiar because she’s not all that interested in getting glasses.

“You’ve got to sit still, kid,” Emma mumbles, and Killian’s eyes are impossibly narrow. “And I think most people can read almost all the letters, babe. That’s why this is the test.”

“Well, that’s absurd.”

“Can you not read the letters on the bottom of the thing?”

Killian quirks an eyebrow. “Do you not know the name for this particular exam, Swan?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“What’s the name of this?”

“No, no, no, I asked first.” Hope squirms again, apparently determined to prove how many limbs she has, and Emma has to tighten both her arms around her middle to ensure she’s not inadvertently elbowed in the stomach. That would do something else to Killian’s eyes. “Those are the rules,” Emma adds, but those words only cause Killian’s lips to twitch slightly and this is not going according to plan.

“It’s fine.”

“Try that one more time.”

“Fine,” Killian repeats, complete with a rather determined head nod that stopped working somewhere like two kids and several curses ago. Hope’s left foot collides with Emma’s thigh. “C’mere, you little sea monster,” Killian mutters, hauling Hope over his shoulder and it takes her approximately four seconds to dissolve into a laughter that makes every single inch of Emma’s soul rise up in something akin to joy.

It’s admittedly a weird feeling to have in Dr. Eckleburg’s office.

She always hated that book.

Far too many metaphors.

“You’ve got to stop twitching so much,” Killian continues, ducking his head to press against Hope’s neck and that works about as well as Emma expected it to. Which is to say that it does not work. She keeps laughing and smiling and for a second Emma forgets about her husband’s eyes, but then those same eyes flicker back towards the sign and—

“Read that second to last line,” Emma mutters, fully prepared for the slight glare she gets in return. Hope stops laughing.

“Can’t you see too?” she whispers, leaning back until she’s practically arched against Killian’s forearms and the consistent similarities between Hope Swan-Jones and an actual sea monster are almost astounding.

Killian’s tongue darts between his lips, a clench to his jaw that Emma is impossibly familiar with. He takes a deep breath, slow enough that his shoulders shift with the force of it and—“I don’t want to get glasses,” Hope adds. Emma’s whole soul…shatters. Or something. Possibly something less dramatic.  

“I don’t think that’s entirely negotiable, little love,” Killian reasons, but that only gets another pointed twist of lips and a nose scrunch that Emma’s really starting to find kind of offensive. It is incredibly off-putting to see her own mannerisms reflected back on her kid.

Hope huffs, brows furrowing until there’s a rather obvious pinch between them and it takes Emma longer than she’d like to actually stand up. She lets her fingers ghost over the back of Hope’s shirt, fabric rumpling underneath it and she’s really not all that surprised by what happens next.

“Alright,” Killian continues, “what if I try and read that last line—”

“—You can’t read that last line,” Emma mumbles, resting her chin on her hand and Killian rolls his eyes.

“If I try and read that last line with whatever this doctor’s name is…”

“Seriously, this is not helping.”

Hope laughs again. It’s loud and honest and somehow still some kind of tinkling noise that Emma is certain works under her skin and wraps around most of her joints and several different internal organs, settling into a rhythm with her pulse and she’s going to blame all these metaphors on F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Like a normal person.

“I will try and read those last few lines,” Killian says, Emma’s jaw dropping just a bit with that last addendum. “Do not, Swan.”

“Did I say a word?”

“You’re doing that thing with your face, love.”

“What thing?” Hope asks brightly, any fear of glasses forgotten in banter that is also impossibly old and somehow just as easy as ever. Even if Emma is a little worried about the consistently failing eyesight of her family.

She hopes Henry can see when he travels between realms.

“That thing,” Killian says, nodding in Emma’s general direction. She smiles. He shakes his head. “And, aye, the last few lines. So—” He shrugs, another deflection that makes something spark in the back of her brain, but it’s gone almost as soon as Dr. Eckleburg comes back with a prescription for Hope and questions from Killian and, so, Captain Hook, scourge of several different seas and deputy of the All-Realm, who still makes at least half of the dwarves cower in something close to fear, gets reading glasses.

Bifocals, technically.

And it consistently and constantly messes with Emma’s head.

He looks stupid attractive in reading glasses.

Bifocals, technically.

It's been a week since the appointment and something like seventy-two hours since he did some stupid thing where he used his hook to push the glasses back up the bridge of his nose and Emma is having a difficult time coping. Like, at all.

Hope’s glasses are pink. She also looks adorable. It almost makes Emma forget that this is, in fact, all her fault. Maybe they should have discussed Lasik. Or spells.

There’s got to be a spell to fix eye sight.

“If you down anymore tea, I’m going to report you,” Ruby says, leaning over the counter until her elbows are resting on fiberglass and Emma does her best not to scowl. It does not work.

That is an oddly frustrating theme for her recently.

“I am paying for this,” Emma points out. “That means I get to drink however much I want.”

“Does it though?”

“Capitalism or whatever.”

“Yeah, yeah, following up with whatever definitely proved your point. What’s your deal?”

“I have no deal.”

“You have at least two deals that I can think of, but I’m willing to guess that the list goes all the way up to ten and I’d really love to streamline this conversation.”

Emma barely gets her mouth open, not entirely sure what she’s going to say but it is going to be _something_ before the door to her right swings open and the bell does whatever a bell does. Rings. Incessantly. Ariel marches into the diner with a smile on her face and a kid hanging off her side and both Elsa and Mulan look like they’re desperately trying not to laugh.

It's a courtesy Ruby does not share. She throws her whole head back when she cackles, an arm around her middle and smile stretching across her face until Emma is tempted to make several jokes about wolves. She doesn’t. Mostly because she actually hates tea.

That’s definitely, like, thing number four on her list.

It's not as important as the eye glasses thing.

“Did you do this?” Emma asks, Ruby’s head snapping forward quickly enough that for a second, she genuinely believes she’s going to bite her. She doesn’t. She flashes what may actually be too many teeth for an average human, but her jaw stays still and the hint of laughter lingering at the corners of her mouth is also frustrating.

“Are you kidding me?”

“You’re telling me this all just happened—what? Suddenly? Spontaneously?”

“Well, not totally,” Ariel admits, and Emma makes some kind of noise that she hopes sounds like triumph. It just hurts the back of her throat.

Ruby holds both hands up in mock surrender. “I knew they were going to be here after the meeting.”

“There was a meeting?” Emma asks. Elsa makes her own noise, a click of her tongue and quick bump of her shoulder against Emma’s.

“Your mom wanted to talk about trade negotiations or something. It wasn’t…you really didn’t have to be there. I didn’t want to be there.”

“I have no idea what is going on.”

“You know who was there?” Ruby asks, clearly far more in control of the conversation than any of them. Emma blinks. “Your husband. Who you’ve been gawking at. For days.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you not know the meaning of the word gawk?”

“I need more tea.”

“No, I’m cutting you off.”

“You know that has caffeine in it too,” Elsa reasons, and Emma rolls her whole head in response. She does not look all that surprised. “I’m just saying. Anyway, can we focus here because—”

“—Killian’s freaking out,” Ariel cuts in, voice rising on every letter and that’s not really what Emma expected. But then again she didn’t expect both her kid and her husband to need glasses at the same time and she probably should have realized she’d be into the glasses thing.

She’s kind of…into everything that has to do with her husband.

It's ridiculous.

But, like, in a romantic way.

“Well, that was subtle,” Mulan mutters, dropping onto the stool next to Emma and ignoring Ruby’s shouts of indignation when she leans over the counter to grab the baked goods stashed just underneath. “Please, you are very bad at hiding things.”

“Much like Captain Killian Jones,” Ariel adds. “Please, be impressed by that.”

Emma tilts her head. “By what…exactly?”

“My ability to keep the conversation focused. You know your mom tried to show us a video of your brother and Hope riding a bike no less than twenty-six times. It’s a miracle we ever get anything done.”

“Yeah, but she feeds you so…”

“I feel like I should be offended by that,” Ruby muses. She’s leaning against the container behind her, head resting on the door and the light in it makes her hair look almost phosphorescent. Emma clearly needs to get some more sleep.

She’s a little annoyed her mom didn’t invite her to the meeting.

“No one should be offended by anything,” Elsa says. “That’s the point of this.”

“And this is, what?” Emma asks. “An intervention?”

“That sounds very aggressive.”

“Which is not what we’re doing,” Mulan adds, but it’s difficult to take that promise seriously when most of the words get caught in the blueberry muffin she’s eating.

Elsa clicks her tongue again. “It’s not. Also, your mom had a reason for not inviting you. Aside, from well—you know…”

“Killian knows how to get everywhere,” Ariel interrupts, only to be met by several exasperated sounds. Emma makes a gesture at Ruby, an unspoken command for her own blueberry muffin that gets her a rather pointed tongue and distinct eye roll.

And a blueberry muffin.

So, points or whatever.

“This is not the direct conversation I was promised,” Emma says, unwrapping the baked good so she can immediately flip it over.

Ruby scoffs. “You’re an animal. Who eats a muffin like that?”

“Why are you judging this right now? Also, I am saving the top for the end, which is the best part, and everyone knows that. Also, also, you weren’t invited to my mom’s super top-secret meeting either.”

“That’s because I have a real job. Also, she didn’t invite you because she needed Killian’s sea-faring expertise and well, if you’re there, then—”

“—You’re making eyes,” Elsa shouts. Several heads from several different realms turn their direction.

And Emma has to glance down to make sure she hasn’t immediately combusted on the spot. She hasn’t, but there’s a definite energy lingering in the spaces between the fingers that aren’t holding a goddamn blueberry muffin and the whole thing has reached absurd levels far quicker than she expected.

“That’s definitely true,” Ruby agrees. “It’s like…it’s stupid.”

“Stupid,” Emma echoes. She’s got blueberry under her nail.

“Excessively stupid. Especially since he hasn’t really noticed.”

She almost drops the muffin. Also stupid. “Wait, what?”

“This is kind of the reason we’re here,” Ariel explains. “Because, uh…well, we know you’ve been kind of busy, so maybe you didn’t notice and—”

“—What the hell are you talking about?”

“Killian thinks the glasses look old. You think the glasses make him look good. Someone should say something and then you should stop making eyes in such public places because I’m, like, ninety-two percent positive you’re making your dad really uncomfortable.”

She drops the muffin.

Ruby groans.

“I am…confused,” Emma says slowly, mostly because her brain cannot possibly process these words in this specific order and it hadn’t even crossed her mind that Killian would think anything of the glasses. That’s not great. That’s… “Oh, damn,” she breathes, and Elsa’s staring at her with something far too close to pity to be entirely comfortable. “Are you serious?”

Ariel hums. “I mean he didn’t say anything, but—”

“—But?”

“Well, I mean, Hope wasn’t all that into getting the glasses, right?”

“You think Killian doesn’t want to wear glasses because our kid didn’t?”

“No, I think Killian didn’t think he needed glasses, was slightly stunned to learn that Hope didn’t want them because she was worried about kids making fun in class—”

“—Oh my God.”

“This does not make you a horrible person, Em,” Ruby reasons, but her gaze has turned a little placating too and Emma genuinely does not remember standing up. “You’ve got some other things on your mind.”

Emma huffs, a breath of air that makes most of her body ache and she digs the heel of her hand into her back. “Ok, ok, ok,” she says, stepping dangerously close to the muffin, but it’s also kind of difficult to see over the swell of her stomach now and she can’t stop clicking her teeth together. “So, wait a second. You’re telling me, honestly, right now in this diner that Killian, _my Killian_ , is nervous that…what? He’s got to wear glasses, so I think he’s old?”

“I mean, I think he thinks he’s old,” Ariel counters. “He’s mostly annoyed by the whole thing.”

“Shit.”

“Should I repeat the horrible person thing from before?” Ruby quips, and if Emma were more dexterous she’d totally pick the muffin up off the ground and throw it at her. As it is she can only glare and glower and Ruby snickers when she moves her hand over her mouth.

“It’s the dumbest thing we’ve ever seen, honestly,” Mulan says. “Mostly because most of the All-Realm is almost too aware that you’d like to—what’s the phrase Snow White used?”

“Jump his bones,” Elsa answers, and to her credit, she manages to get the words out before dissolving into something akin to hysterics.

Emma’s jaw pops when it falls open. Again.

She steps in the muffin.

“Oh my God,” Emma repeats, Ruby still laughing, and Elsa’s actually draped over the counter now, her whole body moving with the force of her laughter. Ariel is very clearly biting her lip.

“I mean,” she shrugs, “you glance his direction a lot.”

“We are married,” Emma cries. The heads snap her direction again. “Oh, look at something else,” she adds, voice turning rough and the magic between her fingers feels like it’s very close to some kind of metaphorical breaking point.

She’d have to ask Dr. Eckleburg about the metaphors, though.

“Yeah, see, we know that,” Ariel promises.

Ruby still has her hand over her mouth. It makes it slightly difficult to make out the words she mutters into her palm. “Everyone knows that. It’s like…obvious.”

Emma will also have to ask Hope how she manages to move quickly enough to give the allusion of extra limbs. As it is, all she manages to do is flail her arms limply at her side, head thrown back and another groan tearing at the back of her throat.

“Is there a point to this?” Emma asks, but the question sounds like it’s begging, and Elsa’s fingers are surprisingly warm when they curl around her wrist.

“Stand still. You look like Hope.”

“This is probably where she gets it, honestly.”

“Absolutely,” Elsa nods. “The point is that everyone in this entire All-Realm is far too aware of just how much you appreciate your husband and whatever advancing age he may be undergoing.”

“Did you tell him this? Like did you use those actual words in conversation?”

“Are you kidding me?”

Emma lets her head loll forward, some of her annoyance dissipating at the vaguely scandalized look on Elsa’s face. “We don’t have a death wish,” Mulan mutters. “And that would have annoyed your dad.”

“We are going in circles,” Ariel announces, hitching her daughter further up her side and leveling Emma with a stare that could probably summon several different mythical beings in a variety of waters. All of which, she has no doubt, Killian brought up in detail that afternoon. While wearing the goddamn glasses. Maybe it’s actually Snow White’s fault.

That seems better than blaming Hope.

“The actual point,” Ariel continues, “my dear princess of Misthaven, is that while it may be obvious to everyone with a pulse that you are ridiculously attracted to your own husband and his new glasses—”

“—Bifocals,” Emma mumbles.

“I swear, that is not important. Everyone knows. You stare. Openly. Consistently. It’s almost kind of romantic in a True Love sort of way. But I will tell you something else, the prince consort of Misthaven does not realize it. He’s far too busy worrying about that gray at his temple.”

“I’m kind of into that.”

“I mean, obviously you are. Tell him that.”

Emma lets out a breath, half disbelief that she’s been intervention’ed to flirt with her own husband and half laughter because she is undeniably staring longingly at her own husband. She nods, quick and a little jerky, but also slightly appreciative, doing her best to, at least, get the remains of the muffin into a sweepable pile with her foot.

It takes her two seconds to remember she has magic.

“Oh shit,” Emma mutters, twisting her wrist and the muffin is gone. Ruby rolls her eyes.

“I’m going to tell him you’re overexerting yourself.”

“I will get Regina to stage an unannounced health inspection.”

Ruby bares her teeth. “Go make out with your husband.”

“Honestly,” Elsa adds with a smile. She’s trying to get a croissant without actually climbing over the counter. It’s not going well.

Emma sighs again, but she can’t actually make it sound annoyed and she supposes that’s kind of nice. The bell above the diner door is still ringing when she turns back to the lot of them, one side of her mouth tugged up and it’s not exactly _heroic_ , what she says next, but this whole thing has been some other level of ridiculous and—

“I’m going to tell Killian that you referred to him as prince, Ariel,” Emma announces. “And then he’s going to refuse to watch your kid anymore.”

Ariel opens her mouth to object, but Emma’s already twisting her wrist and it’s kind of excessive. The magic, that is. It’s not really that far of a walk, after all, and she does it almost entirely for the reaction she gets, Killian’s head jerking up as soon as she arrives in the dining room, a puff of smoke lingering at her ankles.

“Swan, what are you—” he starts, but the rest of the words get lost in the air and possibly just under his tongue because Emma does a pretty goddamn good job of making sure his tongue finds its way into her mouth.

She moves into his space almost immediately, crowding against his chest and it takes far less time than she expected for her to practically be straddling his hips. Killian’s hand comes up to rest on her waist, the curve of his hook pressing into the bottom of her spine. It makes Emma’s back arch slightly, trying to touch as much of him as she possibly can because it’s been years and kids and optometrist appointments, but she’s still way better at doing than saying.

So she tilts her head and lets her mouth open against his, fingers carding through hair that isn’t quite perfectly dark anymore. There are noticeable streaks there, especially by his temples, bits of light and dots of silver and every single one makes Emma’s pules thud erratically in her veins.

Emma rolls her hips, a practiced rhythm that gets exactly the sound she wanted out of Killian. His breath hitches and his head drops slightly, nosing at the curve of her shoulder and the side of her neck, dragging his mouth up underneath her jaw and that one, specific, spot just behind her right ear.

And it really is going pretty well, Emma’s heart expanding and her vision swimming just a bit because she can’t even begin to form a rational thought when Killian’s teeth nip at her skin, but then well—

“Ah, bloody…” he grumbles, leaning back to push his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. He uses his right knuckles.

It's almost as good as the hook thing.

And there is a very large smudge on one of the lenses.

Emma hates that she smiles. She does. But the whole thing is so, impossibly endearing and her heart refuses to follow the laws of actual physics and there’s got to be something magical about that too.

True Love, or whatever.

For…old and older and distractingly good-looking glasses. Bifocals, technically.

“Why do you hate the glasses?”

Killian leans back further, brows pulled low and that same muscle jumping in his jaw. “I…I don’t hate them. Why do you think I hate them?”

“They said—”

“—Who said?”

“Would you like it in alphabetical order or by who had the most scathing opinion?”

“I would bet you quite a bit of gold that Ariel had the most scathing opinion.”

Emma is very confused again. Maybe they should kiss some more. She shakes her head slowly, trying to get her thoughts to settle and, maybe, her pulse to calm down a bit, but Killian’s hook has found its way under her shirt and has started tracing tiny semi-circles against her skin, so she figures that’s a losing battle she’s not even interested in beginning.

“Are you a soothsayer?” Emma asks, stabbing her finger into his chest. He catches her around the wrist, tugging her hand up and pressing his lips against her knuckles.

“Not as such, no.”

“Did you know that they were going to intervention me?”

“I had a generic idea that they might, yes. I didn’t think it would be quite this soon, though.”

Emma feels like she’s been hit by lightning. Her jaw is getting one hell of a workout today. It pops again. She hopes that’s not a sign of impending age. And yet…”Are you kidding me?” she snaps, Killian’s eyes absolutely getting bluer the longer she gapes at him. “Did you know?”

“Be more specific, Swan.”

“You’ve got to tell me what’s actually going on here.”

He chuckles, low and a little dangerous, as if that’s something a laugh could be, but then his teeth nip over the tip of her nose and Emma’s magic leaps. Killian’s eyes widen. “Has that been happening a lot?”

“Babe, oh my God!”

“I’m worried about your magic, Swan,” he reasons, hook moving around to her front and there is something decidingly cheating and wholly piratical about it. “That’s romantic.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Admittedly less romantic.”

“Start at the beginning,” she says, doing her best to make it sound less like a command. It does not work. She didn’t expect it to. Something about Jay Gatsby, probably. “You didn’t want glasses, right?”

“Who would?”

“Killian Jones, I swear to God—” Emma doesn’t finish, another repeat and that tongue thing is quite possibly her worst enemy. In a scenario where Emma actually really likes her worst enemy. It’s admittedly convoluted.

“I did not want glasses,” Killian confirms. “Because, as the little fish was very quick to point out, glasses are for—”

“—Four eyes?”

“Something like that, aye. So, I didn’t want them because it felt like…well, a sailor needs to see, right? The horizon and general sense of direction and the stars.”

“You realize this will help with that, right?”

“I do,” he promises. “I was, however, rather disappointed with the initial idea of them.”

“Why?”

“Aside from how quickly they get dirty?” Emma hums, tugging the glasses off his face and using the end of her shirt to get rid of the smudge. It makes him smile. And she’s not entirely sure if Killian is actually breathing when she pushes the sides back over his ears, but then he’s turning into her palm on his cheek, kissing just inside her wrist and—“It is an altogether far too obvious sign of aging, don’t you think?”

“I’m fairly certain that’s how the human body works.”

“Aye, your mother was rather quick to point that out.” Emma’s jaw cannot hold up to all of this for much longer. Killian hums, another kiss to her skin. “She was adamant about it. That this was a natural progression of…everything and I—well, I did hate them to begin with.”

“But?”

“But,” he echoes. “Your mother has a stubborn streak several miles long. I’m sure that’s where both you and Hope get it.”

“These are not compliments, Captain.”

His eyes are getting brighter. Emma is positive. He also may just be flirting with her. That’s rather wonderful, all things considered. “I was told, in no uncertain terms, to stop sulking about the glasses. Because—well, your mother said several things that I dare not to repeat in front of a princess and—”

Emma swats at his chest with both hands, an incredible exercise in balance that only succeeds when Killian’s fingers tighten around the curve of her hip. He smirks at her. “You are incredibly annoying, you know that?”

“Yes, that was one of the things your mother mentioned. But, well, it did leave me thinking and—” The smirk turns genuine, far too much emotion when Emma’s still got her legs on either side of his hips. “It’s been a very long time since I even considered the possibility of something like this,” Killian breathes. “The chance to…it shouldn’t surprise me anymore, love. All of this. A family and the wee little sea monster and,” his hand moves over her stomach, thumb brushing across the front of her shirt in a move that is a little possessive and a little wonderful and the light above them flickers.

Killian laughs, a quick kiss that leaves Emma leaning forward and she gets to blame hormones for the next few months. Then it’s just the glasses' fault, really.

“It’s still a little difficult to believe sometimes,” Killian admits. “Because I’m—”

“—Super old?”

He mouths at the side of her chin, scruff scratching against Emma’s cheek. “Aye, something like that. But that’s never really been a problem before.”

“Is it now?”

“I thought so at first,” he says. “That this was…I don’t know, a sign of…the end does sound slightly macabre doesn’t it?”

“Kind of.”

“And I realize it’s not that. Even without Snow White’s assistance.”

“Mom got around apparently. She’s definitely the reason I got interventioned today too.”

“I don’t know many more efficient people than your mother,” Killian mutters, eyes flashing again and he hisses in a breath when Emma’s nails shift. “What I’m trying to say is…the whole thing was entirely vain and only a little self-serving and I…well, I don’t quite hate the glasses anymore.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he repeats, a pale imitation of her voice that makes Emma scrunch her nose. “Because, and honestly get ready to swoon, Swan, I realized that the glasses were a sign of…life, I suppose. One with you and the aforementioned sea monster and that change wasn’t necessarily some harbinger of doom—”

"—You are the most dramatic person in all the realms, your highness.”

Killian growls. “This is not swooning, love.”

“How many times do you think you can refer to our kid as a sea monster before it starts to get weird?”

“When she demonstrates consistent control of all her limbs.”

“Ah, yeah that’s fair.”

“Right,” he nods, another kiss pressed to the bridge of her nose. “I don’t mind them so much. I…I’d still rather not have them because the bloody things do get dirty just by existing, but,” Killian shrugs, a tilt of his head and one strand of hair falling across his forehead. Probably just to torment Emma. “I appreciate what they mean. For both of us and this life we’ve built.”

Emma doesn’t respond immediately. It is her great failing, like just…as a person. She’s not great at conversation or doing anything except letting the emotion currently rushing through both her arms settle into her veins and drift into her bloodstream and circle back around to her heart. She should say that out loud.

That would be kind of romantic.

As it is, she stays frustratingly silent, staring at this 300-year-old pirate who very clearly loves her and their kids and _they’ve got kids_ and a life and this house and this goddamn All-Realm and--

“This is the part where you appropriately swoon, Swan,” Killian mutters, but there’s a hint of nerves to his voice that does not belong there.

Emma gasps.

Idiot.

Because everyone was right. And he might not totally hate the glasses anymore. But he absolutely, positively does not know.

“I think they make you look unfairly good,” Emma announces, far too loud to be even remotely dignified. Killian’s eyebrows soar into his hairline. “Like it’s so absolutely stupid how good the glasses make you look. It’s been driving me insane since you got them.

He blinks. Once, twice, three times, lips parting with a soft pop and another head tilt. She’s going to magic that one strand of hair back.

“Honestly,” Emma continues, because once she starts, the emotions don’t ever seem to stop. Like Pringles. Emotional Pringles. “It’s…genuinely kind of offensive how good looking you are as an old person. I hate it. I mean—you know, I don’t hate it, but it’s just—”

“—Did you just call me old?” Killian cuts in, and there’s got to be some dentist in Storybrooke Emma wasn’t aware of too. Her teeth are going to need it.

“In a way where that’s actually a compliment.”

“Because you’re attracted to that.”

“How were you not getting that? I’ve been staring at you all week.”

“You do have a tendency to stare rather often, love.”

“Because you’re attractive! That’s how it works.”

“Does it, just?”

Emma scowls, but it’s difficult to stay consistently frustrated when he’s staring at her like that – glasses sliding down his nose and eyes distractingly blue and the hair moves when he shakes his head in what she can only imagine is disbelief. “I just,” Emma continues lamely, waving both her hands near her ears. Killian tugs his lips back behind his teeth. “This whole silver thing is…it’s working.”

His eyes widen.

“Like, really working.”

“Yuh huh,” Killian muses. “And the glasses thing?”

“You’re fishing for compliments.”

“I absolutely am.”

Emma laughs, pulling herself closer to Killian, but that’s starting to get a bit harder every day and whatever noise she makes quickly evolves into a giggle when he presses a line of kisses across her collarbone. “You’re going to mess up your glasses again,” Emma points out. He does not seem to care all that much. “I’m…oh God, if I use the word distinguished are you going to laugh?”

“You’re the one laughing, Swan.”

“You look distinguished.”

He does, in fact, chuckle against her skin, but that only serves to leave goosebumps on her skin and Emma has no idea how she’s managed to stay on his legs this entire time. It’s probably True Love again, honestly. “I’m not sure that’s exactly the reputation I’m going for, love.”

“Ariel referred to you as a prince today.”

“That’s because she’s mad at me for being, her words, stupid about the glasses.”

“Yeah, well, the glasses look good and you’re—”

“—A worthy prince consort?”

“Something like that,” Emma mumbles, if only because the butterflies churning in her stomach make it difficult to speak any louder. It’s nice that that hasn’t changed. She doesn’t imagine it will. “And I’m glad too, you know?”

“About?”

“This,” she says, glancing around the dining room. There are several dozen maps on their table. “All of it, babe. The interventions and Snow White’s interference and out of control magic—”

“—Has your magic really been out of control?”

Emma clicks her tongue. “I’m seriously going to blame the glasses. And your hair. God, I hate your hair.”

“I love you, too.”

“Yeah, that was my point.” Emma ducks her head, lets her mouth move against his like it has for years and several kids and a variety of curses and it’s just as easy as it’s ever been to be ridiculously attracted to Captain Hook, scourge of a variety of seas, but it’s somehow even easier to love Killian Jones, a good man and a better father and the only person Emma would ever be willing to refer to as prince consort. If only because it makes the tips of his ears go red.

Every single time.

And Emma isn’t all that surprised when the front door nearly flies off its hinges, the undeniable sounds of a backpack hitting the wall and sneakers landing somewhere. Hope sprints towards them, clearly unsurprised by their current seating arrangement if only because she’s already talking several miles a minute. Or whatever the nautical version of that is.

Leagues. Leagues a minute.

“And we had to read off the board and I didn’t miss a single word and Mrs. Jewls gave me a Tootsie Roll Pop—” Emma jerks back when Hope brandishes the candy, clearly proud and there are still glasses on her face. Her eyes flicker towards Killian, his own smile tugging at the ends of his mouth.

“What did you have to read?”

“Dr. Seuss!”

Killian’s gaze darts Emma’s direction. She shakes her head slightly. “Not magic. As far as I know, at least.”

“I knew that.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure you did. What’s your favorite story so far, Hope?”

Saying that the question opens up the floodgates is another metaphor, but Emma is far too busy being charmed by her own kid and she supposes, in his own way, Dr. Seuss also deals in metaphors. Particularly when she is presented with what, at first glance, appears to be Dr. Seuss’ entire life’s work.

There are books everywhere, including some falling out of the half-zipped backpack that is, in fact, propped up against the wall in the hallway.

“How did you carry all of this?” Emma asks, clamoring off Killian’s legs when Hope lifts her arms in the air. “And where did they—”

“—I’ll give you three guesses,” Killian mumbles. He’s already flipping through the books, each one stamped with a familiar brand and he’s not even trying to hide his smile anymore. “Did you go scour the library after school, little fish?”

Hope pushes her glasses up before she answers. “Henry took me and Lucy when he picked us up. There are lots of books there and Aunt Belle—”

“—Aye, I figured. Well, you’ve got quite a treasure trove here. How do you think you’re going to get through all of these?”

Emma’s heart bursts. Kind of. Metaphorically. She can feel Hope’s smile when she buries her head into the side of her neck. “You know,” Emma muses, “Dad’s got some pretty great reading glasses now and he's very good at making sure he doesn’t skip the words too.”

Hope lifts her head. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. We used to do that a lot. When you were little and even before you were born. Dad’s a very good story teller.”

“Will you, Daddy? There’s a bunch there and you can have some of my Tootsie Roll Pop!”

Killian’s tongue presses into the corner of his mouth, ears coloring and eyes as blue as ever. Emma hugs her daughter just a bit tighter. “You eat the lollipop, little love. And we’ll make Mama pick the book, huh?”

Hope nods enthusiastically enough that her chin nearly collides with Emma’s shoulder more than once. She can barely get one word out before the next one is already bubbling away and there’s another fish pun to be made there.

Emma picks _Fox in Socks_. Killian rolls his eyes. And kisses her cheek.

And they make it through half a dozen books before Emma’s stomach starts to grumble and then three more books after dinner before Hope’s eyes start to flutter, Killian tugging the glasses off her face so they don’t risk disaster.

The whole thing is unfairly adorable and just as attractive, Hope clinging to Killian while the three of them trudge up the stairs. Emma magics the smudges off his glasses when he crawls into bed next to her, muttering about _limbs_ and _sea monsters_ and she falls asleep with a smile on her face and magic fluttering in the air around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know guys. I've got a lot of prompts and I feel really bad for asking for prompts and then never filling them. So, here are some more prompt fills. Also, I like established relationships. Like, forever and ever. 
> 
> Come flail on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/) if you're down. I'll probably keep spewing words at the internet.


	8. An American Haunting, Part One

The gasps always made her smile. 

That was a very strange sentence out of context, but Emma couldn’t help the way her lips quirked up every single time, biting the side of her tongue so she wouldn’t actually laugh at the whole, stupid thing. 

He had quite a flair for the dramatic, after all. 

“Even Lafayette himself once wrote that he felt someone push against his back upon entering the house! But there was no one there. There never is. Just a feeling, that chill that creeps up your spine and takes up residence in the back of your brain, waiting for you to let your guard down.”

And…cue the gasps. 

Emma covered her mouth with her hand, fingers curling around the side of her jaw. Her eyes flickered towards the couple in front of her, still sporting their Colonial Williamsburg tickets on lanyards and the man’s ghost tour sticker was peeling off at one end. 

The woman reached for his hand. 

And Killian was wholly and entirely in his element. 

He leaned forward, a spark in his eyes that was not even remotely supernatural, but completely theatrical, the stretch of a smile moving in slow motion across his face. 

“Take a look at some of the photos you’ve been snapping this whole time,” he muttered. If he leaned forward any further his stupid tri-corner hat was going to fall off. 

Emma shifted against the side of the fence she was leaning on, tugging on her own skirts and trying to find a way to stand that didn’t end with her stupid eighteenth-century appropriate shoes digging into the back of her heels. It didn’t work. 

It never did. 

Killian wasn’t done. 

“See anything yet?” he asked lightly, a practiced spiel that always ended with—

“Oh my God, there are orbs in the photo!”

Emma rolled her eyes skyward, all stars and a few clouds and it was humid enough that her hair was actually starting to curl at the ends. Maybe she could convince Regina to let her wear a different outfit later that week. This one was impossibly heavy, all full skirts and an apron that didn’t make any sense at all because she wasn’t working in any of the kitchens on property, was leading tours from nine at night until somewhere in the realm of midnight for extra money and she was certain each group was getting smaller and smaller. 

The crowds were getting smaller and smaller. 

No one wanted to go learn about Colonial American history on their vacation. 

“That’s right,” Killian said, crossing his arms and rocking back on his own heels. Emma assumed they didn’t hurt his feet. He was still smiling. “The Peyton Randolph house is considered one of the most haunted buildings in the entire United States. Visitors since even before the first shots were fired in Lexington and Concord have claimed interactions with the supernatural. They’ve been shaken violently in their beds, heard laughter from other rooms, furniture moves—“

“—But what about the orbs?”

Emma was going to need pliers to move her hand away from her mouth. Killian uncrossed his arms, resting his weight on the replica musket he was holding. 

He was supposed to be a Colonial soldier. 

At the Randolph house while it was used as a hospital in 1781. Just about every building in Williamsburg was used as a hospital in 1781. 

It was unfairly attractive. 

Him, not the hospital thing. Emma wasn't a psychopath. 

“Well,” Killian drawled, “that’s up for debate, isn’t it? Could be a catch of the light. Could be—“ He shrugged, eyes flicker towards Emma and she had to bite her tongue again. “Disembodied ghosts looking to find their way onto the afterlife. No one knows for certain, do they Miss Swan?”

She might have gasped. 

Killian’s smile widened. 

Idiot. 

That wasn’t part of the script at all. 

“Oh, yes, absolutely, sir,” she said quickly, trying her best to stay in character. The group turned expectantly toward her, eyes wide and that woman appeared to be gripping her husband’s hand like some kind of vice. “Lots of whispers about this house and, well, Mr. Randolph, you know, I don’t like to speak ill of such a respected gentleman, but—“

“—Is that the newspaper guy?” another voice interrupted, and Emma was going to have to have a serious conversation about Regina about that too. 

And she was just about to respond, not sure how she was going to do that while staying in character, but the words got caught in Emma’s throat, a sudden chill spreading through all of her limbs. 

She felt rooted to the spot, mouth going dry and goosebumps exploding across her skin. Her vision danced in front of her, no orbs, but something just on the edge that felt a bit like a shadow creeping across her eye line, a hopelessness that Emma was certain she could taste, like ash and disappointment and none of that made sense, but her knees suddenly felt very weak and—

_Help me. Please. I need help._

Emma didn’t hear the footsteps at first, flinching when Killian’s fingers curled around her elbow. People were gasping again. 

“Swan?” he whispered, bending his own knees so he was level with her. His thumb traced absent-minded patterns on her sleeve. They were going to get in trouble for that. “Are you alright, love?”

She nodded slowly, not sure if it was actually true or not, but the shadow was gone and that had to count for something. 

“Fine, fine. I’m—I’m fine.”  
  
“Try that again.”  
  
“Fine, sir,” Emma snapped, an abrupt return to form and characters and Killian's eyebrows leapt into his hairline. His tongue swiped the front of his teeth. 

“Just a touch of vapors, is it?”  
  
Emma scowled, resisting the very real urge to kick him in the shins, but she didn’t need Regina to yell at them for more than one thing and she really wanted to switch costumes. “The air is rather heavy tonight, sir, that’s all,” she said. “Shall we continue on to the next place, then?”

There was a general murmur of agreement and confusion from the crowd, Emma pulling her arm back to her side quickly enough that she nearly elbowed herself in the ribs.  
Killian’s had to pick up the musket. He’d dropped it at some point.  

“Alright,” Emma continued, backing up towards Nicholson Street, “if you’ll all be so kind as to follow me this way, our next stop takes us up the road towards the public gaol and Hangman’s Lane where, legend has it, member’s of Blackbeard’s crew were taken to the gallows.”  
  
More gasps. 

A few _ooh_ and exactly one _no way, really_. Emma smiled. 

And Killian’s eyes never left hers, concern practically wafting off him and mixing in with that very specific smell that was Williamsburg in late August, like dogwood trees and sunscreen. 

* * *

He was waiting for her. 

She wasn’t all that surprised, but it was still kind of nice in a butterflies in her stomach and slightly erratic pulse kind of way and Emma had gotten a few more gasps out of the crowd. Well, Ruby had when they’d gotten to Shield’s Tavern and the story about the lady who haunted the corner room upstairs, but that felt like splitting hairs and Emma was exhausted. 

“You want to tell me what happened now?” Killian asked, legs stretched out in front of him where he was sitting. On the stairs behind the Public Armory, a few feet away from the staff rooms. 

He was already back in modern clothes, which was a little bit like playing with fire, guests still filing out of the historic area and meandering down Duke of Gloucester Street, but he had that very specific type of pinch between his eyebrows and—  
  
“No,” Emma replied. “Because nothing happened.”  
  
“You’re honestly getting worse at it.”  
  
Emma made a face. “I really don’t see how that’s possible.”  
  
“Swan.”  
  
“Yeah, what was that about? You’re just throwing out real names in this now? You better watch out or I’m going to tell Regina on you.”

“Please, the only thing you want to do when talking to Regina is tell her how annoyed you are with the overall state of your skirts.”  
  
“Oh, that’s so dumb, honestly.”

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Killian challenged. He leaned back on his elbows, another very specific type of spark in his eyes and this was really starting to become a problem. In a way where it wasn’t, obviously. Because he waited for her and knew her and Emma really had way too many thoughts about how good the whole Colonial outfit regularly looked on him. 

But they were going to have to tell people eventually. 

And she wasn’t sure she could cope with that. 

“It’s a lot of skirts,” Emma mumbled, a quick shrug and pitiful attempt to get around him. “C’mon, move, I’ve got to change and—”

“—What happened, Emma?”  
  
He caught her around the ankle, impressive considering the amount of fabric in the way, glancing up at her with a look that was treading somewhere between imploring and a little overwhelming.  
  
Maybe they wouldn’t have to tell anyone. 

Emma couldn’t believe people hadn’t figured it out already. 

That lady from the tour definitely knew. 

“Did it happen again?” Killian pressed, and his thumb was doing that thing again. Tracing and brushing, following a pattern that wasn’t really there, but might have been obvious for him. 

Emma swallowed. “I don’t—’  
  
“—Swan.”  
  
“This is not a real thing,” she exclaimed, at least the forty-seventh time they’d had that particular conversation. “It’s not! I’m just—I’m tired and I’m worried about attendance and—”  
  
“—Well if management would stop sending out all those cards and things to donors, then we wouldn’t have such a problem. You see the Christmas ornament designs Regina’s been looking at yet? They’re ridiculous.”  
  
Emma sighed out something that might have been a laugh, letting Killian tug her down to his side. She burrowed her face into his chest. “It was louder this time,” she whispered. “Like it was—I don’t know, getting desperate or something.”  
  
“And you still couldn’t see anything?”  
  
“No. Just heard it. Her. Heard her and I was freezing cold again.”  
  
Killian’s hand had started moving at some point, up and down her arm and Emma got the distinct impression he was trying to account for all of her. As if some voice she’d been hearing for the better part of the summer would be able to make her disappear. 

The whole thing was, honestly, starting to get on her nerves. Emma had never been all that apt to believe in the facts she was touting on one of Colonial Williamsburg’s several official ghost tours. And while her’s was definitely the scariest of the bunch — the kid-friendly one didn’t mention hanging pirates — Emma wasn’t the kind of person to have nightmares or worry that she was being followed by some kind of frustrated spirit. 

Until. 

It started just after the Fourth of July festivities in the historic area, one of the few times when the place drew regularly crowds. Emma was sitting on the Palace Green, more ridiculous skirts and sweat pooling at the base of her spine and it had been the middle of the day. None of the stories about being haunted ever happened during the day. 

That was...against the rules or something. 

_Help me. Please. I need help._

She’d brushed it off as the heat and exhaustion, but it kept happening — the same words, the same voice, someone looking for help and Emma seemingly incapable of doing anything except getting cold when it happened. 

She was probably just going insane. 

That wasn’t really a much better option. 

“You’re ok,” he whispered, and her breath definitely hitched as soon as his lips ghosted over the top of her head. That was a bad word choice. “It’s ok.”  
  
“It’s crazy, that’s what it is.”  
  
“I don’t think you’re crazy, love. This is—”  
  
“—Oh, God, do not tell me that this is one of the most haunted places in America. Just...do not do it. I’ll punch you.”  
  
“You kind of looked like you wanted to before.”

“You like drawing out the Randolph schtick.”  
  
“Did I get the best reaction of the night?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“No?” Killian echoed, all scandalized incredulity. Emma shook her head, glancing up and he didn’t argue when her chin dug into his shirt. 

“No. Ruby got some pretty good gasps at Shield’s and David got what can only be described as as a whimper when we started at the Wren, so—”  
  
“—That doesn’t count, the Wren is proper haunted.”  
  
She made a noise in the back of her throat, not quite a disagreement, but more like innate skepticism and Killian definitely kissed the crown of her head that time. “There is no such thing as actual ghosts,” Emma said, ignoring her _maybe_ -boyfriend’s wide-eyed stare. “There’s not. This is—we are doing this for profit and to freak out the tourists. I’m—” Emma pushed up, nearly tripping over her goddamn skirts in the process. “I’ve got to change and then I really think you owe me a milkshake for going off-script.”  
  
Killian grinned. Slowly. It was cheating. They both knew it. The ghosts Emma absolutely, positively did not believe in knew it. 

“You want to walk to Wawa or…”  
  
“Walking’s fine. Five minute?”  
  
“I’ll be here.”

* * *

She made him buy the fried ravioli under the heat lamp at the register too. 

And Emma didn’t notice the brick sitting outside her apartment door when she got home, trudging into her room and falling asleep almost immediately, Killian’s arm curled around her middle. 

* * *

“Ok, do not freak out.”  
  
Emma looked up, her phone in one hand and a half-finished cup of lukewarm coffee sitting a few inches away from her. She winced.

Ruby had that look on her face. 

And Mary Margaret wasn’t far behind. 

Which meant David was—  
  
“Where’s David?” Emma asked. 

Ruby stopped in her tracks. “What kind of question is that?”  
  
“Usually these kinds of conversations also include David and I just don’t want to have to repeat ourselves when he gets here. I’ve got to be at—” She glanced at the schedule hanging on the far wall. “Tarpley’s this afternoon.”  
  
It was apparently Mary Margaret’s turn to freeze. Her eyes bugged, lips popping audibly. “You have to work at Tarpley’s today? Oh, Emma you can’t go.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“You seriously can’t go there, Em,” Ruby said, hooking her foot around an open chair and dropping down in a small cloud of fabric. “Where’s Regina? You’ve got to tell her.”  
  
“Is there a reason I have to tell our boss that I can’t go where I’m scheduled? Honestly, Tarpley’s is the easiest gig out there. I barely have to remember any facts, just for the few kids that come in with that’s—what’s the name of that thing they’re doing this summer?”  
  
“—Kid’s in Liberty,” Mary Margaret answered. Her eyes hadn’t returned to their normal size.  
  
“That’s a garbage name, isn’t it?”  
  
“Emma, I am not kidding around here,” Ruby hissed. She leaned forward, tugging Emma’s phone out of her hand and ignoring any objection. “This is a big deal and—Tarpley’s is crazy haunted, you know that.”

Emma groaned. Loudly. And slid down her chair. It hurt her spine.  
  
“Are you kidding me? Ok, who did he tell?”  
  
“You mean your boyfriend?”  
  
“Killian is not my boyfriend.”  
  
“Yeah?” Ruby grinned. “Tell that to how worried he was about you this morning. Because he, how would you describe it M’s?”  
  
Mary Margaret still didn’t look entirely confident, but Emma knew she couldn’t pass up a good romance either and secret dating in the middle of a vaguely popular tourist destination certainly fit the bill. “Something about a whirlwind,” she muttered. “And he told David. David just—”  
  
“—Can’t exist without telling you things?” Emma finished. 

“Basically. Why didn’t you tell us you were hearing things?”  
  
“Oh my God, I am not hearing things! That’s—I’m just tired and...hallucinating?”  
  
“I’m going to be honest, Em, that is not great either,” Ruby pointed out. She took a sip of Emma’s coffee, sticking her tongue out when the temperature was wrong. 

“Get your own coffee then,” Emma sneered. “Ok, ok, so I’m just...listen, this is not a big deal.” Mary Margaret’s eyes were never going to recover. “It’s not! Because it’s not a real thing. There are not actually ghosts in Williamsburg. It’s an old place with old stories and—”  
  
“—Ghosts,” David said, appearing in the doorway with a bag of Raleigh Bakery goods in his hand. “I refuse to take responsibility for any of this. Your boyfriend—”  
  
“—Come on—”  
  
“—Found me before his shift started at the blacksmith, which is where he is by the way now, Em, if you’re planning on killing him before work, and wanted to know if there were any stories we don’t use on the ghost tours. Specifically about a woman looking for help.”  
  
Emma lifted her eyebrows. “And?”  
  
“And nothing. I can’t find anything.”  
  
“Did you look real hard, then?” Ruby asked knowingly. 

“Maybe not real hard,” David admitted. “But we pretty much cover our bases on all the tours. I mean you can ask Regina if you want to, but…”  
  
“No,” Emma cried. Her voice cracked on both letters, another less-than-good thing, but she was bouncing between emotions so quickly she kind of felt like a ping pong ball. Or that stupid game with the string and the stick and none of the kids who bought it could ever do it right. “We are not telling anyone about any of this because—”  
  
She cut herself off when she heard the first clack of heels, Regina walking into the room with a stack of papers on her hip and bags under her eyes that looked deeper every time Emma saw her. “What are you doing in here?” Regina asked. “Emma, you’re supposed to be opening Tarpley’s five minutes ago.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s not how time works. I’m going, I’m going. I’m—”  
  
Regina blinked. “Yeah?”  
  
“Nothing, I’m fine. Everything is fine.” 

She looked around, as if she were challenging the rest of the room to contradict her and none of them said a word. “Let’s help the tourists learn something, huh?”

* * *

She made it through the day. 

No ghost. No voices. 

Just a day filled with overheated families and kids dressed in Colonial garb, more than a few obvious retirees sporting their own tri-corner hats because, for reasons Emma could never understand, that was apparently something people wanted to do. 

She sold replicas of the Declaration and the Constitution, tiny books that reprinted George Washington’s _Rules of Civility_ and Thomas Paines’ _Common Sense._ And soap. So much soap. People who came to Colonial Williamsburg loved buying soap in bulk and a variety of scents. Lemon, lavender, bayberry. 

All of them. 

Emma’s hands reeked of the scents when she locked the door to Tarpley’s behind her. She didn’t have any extra ghost shifts that night, but she knew Killian was back at the Randolph house and, well—she did like when the crowd gasped. 

So she didn’t consider changing or even going back to the employee rooms, hiking up her skirts and heading towards the palace green and, really, she should have expected it all to go to shit.

The first gust of wind wasn’t much more than a soft breeze, but then the dirt blew up against her ankles and Emma felt like someone had strapped a very strong, nearly indestructible steel pipe to her back. 

Her spine straightened, mouth falling open like something was actually trying to yank the air out of her lungs. She tensed, the lump in the back of her throat making it impossible for Emma to swallow the way she wanted to. 

She tried to lick her lips, but even that was too much movement, shadows extending out from the Governor’s Palace in front of her and whatever sound she heard would probably echo in the back of her consciousness for the rest of her life. 

It wasn’t human. 

That much she knew. 

It sounded like it was coming from an impossible distance and right in front of her, all at the same time, a shrill wail filled with despair and fury and something else just on the edge that felt a hell of a lot like determination. 

And if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, Emma would have sworn it was a dream. 

But she was awake and, somehow, still standing there, knees locked into place with what she could only described as awe and bone-rattling fear. Because there was someone running towards her. 

A woman. 

She was dressed exquisitely, a soft yellow fabric that ballooned around her when she ran. There were tears on her cheeks, streaks of kohl and a softness to her mouth that made Emma want to strangle whoever had done this. Several times over. She didn’t slow down, even as she got closer to Emma, a haziness around her that made it obvious she wasn’t entirely there. 

Her shoes clacked on the cobblestone street, sniffling every few moments and Emma couldn’t blink if she tried. 

She followed the woman as she continued forward, head on a swivel and her own breathing turning erratic. The woman’s shoulders heaved, until something changed, abruptly and suddenly, and her gaze snapped directly towards Emma, eyes boring into what genuinely felt like her soul and that steel _whatever_ got even stronger. 

Emma stood up straighter, not sure what was happening, only that it was important and—  
  
“You have to help me,” the woman said, voice sounding like it was coming from underwater. “What he did. What he—tried to change. It’s not right.”  
  
Emma blinked. Once, twice, three times.  
  
“This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream,” she chanted, pinching up her arm like that 

would get her to wake up. It didn’t. She wasn’t asleep. 

The woman shook her head slowly. She didn’t take a step forward. That was probably for the best, Emma wasn’t sure what she would do if that happened.  
  
“You can help,” she said instead, “make sure the truth is known, what I—what we did. You can make sure it doesn’t happen again. He’s trying. Now. Please. Help me.”  
  
Emma didn’t respond. 

And eventually, when she stopped to think of everything that happened that night, how it changed the scope of anything that happened after, she would always regret that just a bit. 

The woman took a deep breath. 

Impressive, since, by all accounts, she was a ghost. 

“Please,” she repeated softly before turning on her heels and floating straight through the front door of the Wythe House. 

She left her right heel on the ground, the sight flickering for a moment, like it was clinging to this plane of existence and Emma couldn’t pull her eyes away. Until. One more burst of light, another sharp wail and—  
  
Emma didn’t remember her knees giving out, just a pair of hands around her shoulders and mumbled words in her ear, kisses peppered to every bit of skin he could reach and the goddamn musket was a few feet away. 

“Swan, Swan, _Emma_ , look at me, love, c’mon, I need you to actually show that you’re breathing.”

She didn’t say anything. Again. That was becoming a quickly frustrating habit of hers. 

“Emma,” Killian sighed, only slight frustration. The rest was obvious fear and—  
  
“How did you get over here?” she asked. “That’s...aren’t you Randolph’ing tonight?”  
  
“Did you just use the family name as a verb?”  
  
“Am I awake right now?”  
  
Killian kissed her again — just between her brows. “Yeah, you are, love. And I...I don’t know how I knew. I just—” He swallowed, tongue darting towards lips that shouldn’t have been that distracting. All things considered. “I could feel it.”  
  
Emma jerked her head back, the condensation from the grass seeping through her skirts. Regina was going to yell about that. Loudly. Incessantly. “Wait, what?”

“It doesn’t make any sense, but—”  
  
“—I think I saw a ghost.”  
  
To his credit, Killian didn’t laugh. He didn’t really do anything, which was also pretty understandable, but Emma was teetering right on the edge of a complete breakdown and she kind of wanted him to kiss her some more. 

If only to prove this was real. 

“When?”  
  
“Just now,” Emma whispered. “She was...she came out of the palace. All fancy dress and she was crying and she said...she said I could help?”  
  
“You think it was the same woman? The one who was asking for help before?”

“If there’s more than one ghost involved in this, I will scream very loudly.”  
  
That got him to laugh. Killian ducked his head, lips catching Emma’s, and it was over before it really began, which was probably for the best, but she was greedy and dealing with ghosts and her knees were very damp. So she wanted to kiss him. 

For several interrupted minutes. 

No ghosts allowed. 

“Was there anything else?” Killian asked. “I mean she didn’t introduce herself, I’d imagine.”  
  
“No, the ghost and I did not exchange pleasantries.”  
  
“I’ve never heard of a haunting on the Place Green, that’s…”

“What you asked David about?”  
  
Killian blushed, the spots of color on his cheek obvious even under the dim lighting of now-electrical lamps around them. “I was worried,” he said softly. “About—”  
  
“—Me?”  
  
“Quite a bit, yeah.”  
  
“You could feel it?” Emma asked. “Feel what, exactly?”

“I don’t know how to explain it...it was like—like I could feel this tug in the pit of my stomach and I knew it didn’t want me, specifically, but it was like everything that I’ve ever felt for you was disappearing. Like you were…”  
  
“Disappearing?”  
  
“It sounds crazy, I know.”  
  
“I just saw a crying ghost leave her shoe on the grass, so. You know, comparatively.”  
  
“She left her shoe?”  
  
“Technically,” Emma nodded. “It was a ghost shoe, so it’s not there anymore. But it was silk, I think. Pink.”  
Killian narrowed his eyes, gears almost turning audibly in his head. He pressed the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth. “That’s something, love. What do you say to a little bit of research tomorrow afternoon?”

* * *

The Wren Building and the Wren Library were two different places on the campus of William and Mary, a fact that always inexplicably annoyed Emma. But the campus of William and Mary was also absurdly old and, if the stories were true, haunted in several different places and Thomas Jefferson went there, so Emma also figured it was the prerogative of said campus to be frustrating if it wanted. 

She’d already lost track of how long she and Killian had been there, tucked into a corner of the Library, not the Building, with half a dozen stacks of books around them and David’s promise that he’d sneak them ginger cookies from Raleigh at some point. 

“This is pointless,” Emma said, slamming another book closed and ignoring the look of reproach on Killian’s face. He was very worried about offending the books. 

Or possibly the ghosts. 

She hadn’t slept very well the night before. 

“We’re just not looking in the right books, Swan.”  
  
“Babe, we are—” She nearly swallowed her tongue. And Killian didn’t tense so much as he smirked at her, which was really, patently stupid when they were also researching ghosts, but maybe _boyfriend_ sounded kind of good, if not just a little antiquated and— “Oh, don’t do that,” Emma mumbled, but that only gave the smirk more power. 

Clap if you believe in using relationship qualifiers. 

That was an out of place reference.  
  
“You were saying, love,” Killian drawled, propping his head on his hand. Emma rolled her eyes. 

“We’ll circle back around to that.”  
  
“Will we just?”

“Tell me the most out of left field Revolutionary War fact you know.”

“And that will help us how?”  
  
“It’ll distract me from finding absolutely nothing about some lady in a yellow dress that, in all likelihood did not exist,” Emma explained, the smirk turning into something that looked a little more genuine. Killian’s chair squeaked when he pushed out of it, in her space in three quick strides and he didn’t react to whatever sound she made when he tugged her up only to pull her back onto his legs. 

He hooked his chin over her shoulder. 

“The Continental Congress tried to replace Washington at one point. When things were at their worst, before Saratoga and the French showed. Lost some of that faith him. You know he didn’t have a picture-perfect military record—”  
  
“—Starting the French and Indian War will probably do that to you.”  
  
“Ok, it wasn’t Washington specifically.”  
  
“It helped,” Emma argued. “And this is really not a lesser-known fact. I also have a degree, you know. Plus the colonists won at Saratoga and Benedict Arnold was a good guy for a while and—”  
  
“—the French showed up,” Killian said. “We’re making the same point here, love.” She huffed, equal parts frustration and exhaustion. “The woman didn’t have any other defining characteristics? I’m just...I’m trying to time her.”  
  
“Like her 40 up the Palace Green?”  
  
He nipped behind her ear, leaving Emma squirming on his lap and they were going to get kicked out of the Library. She hoped David showed up with the cookies before that. “It just doesn’t make sense,” Killian mused. “Once the royal governor left the colony there wasn’t anything at the Palace that would warrant a dress. It was a hospital. That’s—”  
  
“—Oh, if you say it’s haunted, I’ll strangle you.”  
  
“That’s not romantic at all, Swan.”  
  
“And that’s not a disagreement. I know the story, anyway. Used as a hospital during the Siege of Yorktown and French soldiers died there and now kids at the College jump the wall and see apparitions or whatever.”  
  
“Have you ever done it?”  
  
“Once,” Emma answered, appreciating the look that elicited. “When I first started here. It was Ruby’s idea, obviously. So I went with her and David and M’s. But nothing happened. No ghosts, no weird voices asking me for help. No lady disappearing into the Wythe House.”

Killian jerked back. “Wait, what?”  
  
“Did I not mention that yesterday?” He shook his head slowly, the muscles in his throat moving when he swallowed. The lights above them flickered. “Spooky,” Emma muttered, gritting her teeth when Killian pinched her side. “God, stop that. So, yeah, that happened too. She lost her shoe and then kind of...melted through the door, but that’s—that’s not a clue. George Wythe was a really important guy. He had hundreds of people staying with him.”  
  
“During the war, though? That would have put him in Philadelphia.”  
  
“So he was ahead of his time and came up with a colonial Airbnb.”  
  
“Swan.”  
  
“I’ve never heard of a ghost story at the Wythe house.”  
  
“I have,” David said, and Emma wished he’d stop showing up like that. It was doing damage to her pulse. 

And Killian’s, apparently. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled. The arm around Emma’s waist noticeably tightened. David’s eyebrows lifted. 

“Cookies. And information you can use.”  
  
“I thought you said you’d never heard about a woman asking for help,” Emma said, well aware that it sounded exactly like the accusation it was. 

“That’s true, I haven’t. But I have heard about a woman haunting the Wythe house, or at least its staircase and,” he clicked his tongue, squeezing one eye shut in thought, “possibly the upstairs bedroom too.”  
  
“God, get to the point.”  
  
“The story goes that a woman had been attending an event at the Palace—very Colonial Army, strategizing and—”  
  
“—A woman?” Emma interrupted sharply. David glared. She ignored that. “I know, I know. That’s...I’m just—for real?”  
  
“Again, the story goes that she was well respected and well married. Her husband had been big money in London, came to the colonies to expand the empire or whatever and ran in close circles with both Washington and the Marquis.”  
  
“Lafayette?”  
  
“You know another one?”  
  
“Give me the goddamn cookies, David.”  
  
He chuckled, another step into the room and he’d bought cornbread too. “Do you know what anniversary we’re closing in on?” 

Emma was going to scream. It was going to be dramatic and emotional and college kids would very likely talk in hushed whispers about the _Wren Library Incident_ for years to come. Only, she never got the chance.  
Killian was talking. 

“The Comte de Grasse showed up in Yorktown. The beginning of the end of the Revolutionary War.”  
  
“Ding, ding, ding,” David nodded. “And according to the story some of the plans for the blockade of the Chesapeake that the Comte staged were drafted in a small room outside of the Governor’s Palace. Out by the gardens in the back.”  
  
“Where the hospital was?” Emma asked, and David was starting to look a bit like a bobblehead.  
  
“Ding. Again. The story goes that the woman was there with her husband, a man named Robert Gold and—don’t make fun of the name, I am not in the mood.” Emma mimed zipping her lips closed. Killian kissed the curve of her shoulder. “Anyway, no one knows why, but something happened in that last meeting and the woman she ran out, not a trace of her ever seen again, except, at midnight, when the sound of one heeled shoe can be heard walking up the stairs in the Wythe House.”

Emma had to look down to make sure her heart had not, in fact, fallen on the floor. She was having trouble breathing. But whether that was from the state of her lungs or just how tightly Killian’s arm was holding her was probably a debate even a group of revolutionaries outside the Governor’s Palace wouldn’t have been able to decide. 

“Shit,” she breathed. “One shoe, David? You’re sure?”  
  
“Is that important?”  
  
Emma didn’t answer him. She twisted, meeting Killian’s gaze and the tip of his tongue was back in the corner of his mouth. “What do you think?”  
  
“I think I have several thousand questions I didn’t have before.”  
  
“So list ‘em out.”  
  
He kissed her before he said anything else. That was nice. David groaned. 

“Possibly lesser-known Revolutionary fact,” Killian started, “but Washington had two options in 1780. The French were trying to get some support from the French West Indies, but that wasn’t guaranteed and Washington needed to do something drastic to make a move on the British. So he could either follow de Grasse to the Chesapeake or try and recapture New York.”  
  
“I mean obviously they didn’t recapture New York.”  
  
Killian shook his head. “No, they didn’t. Rochambeau advised them this way because he heard the British were building a deep-water port in Yorktown. And it wasn’t quite a last-ditch effort, but trying to contain Cornwallis down here was...an almost unheard of tactic. A lot of things had to go right and there was a certain amount of subterfuge to it. Washington and Lafayette both engaged British troops to make it seem like they were going for New York.”  
  
And it only took her a few seconds to understand. 

The light above them definitely got brighter.  
  
“You think he had help,” Emma said, stabbing her finger into Killian’s chest. He caught her around the wrist. “Someone here. Whoever told Rochambeau.”  
  
Killian nodded. “I do.”  
  
“You think it was Robert Gold?”  
  
“Why would someone with deep pockets in London be at a meeting of the minds just months before the British surrender?”  
  
Emma’s head was spinning. And racing. And possibly tripping over things. She was very glad she was sitting down.  
  
“But what about this woman?” David pressed through a mouthful of cookie. “Why would _she_ run out of a meeting if her husband was helping the colonists? Unless she didn’t want that?”  
  
“No, that’s not right,” Emma said quickly. She blinked at the sudden certainty to her voice, as if it wasn’t hers at all, and she really wished her mouth would stop going dry so often. Killian tilted his head. “I don’t—David, do not react to this—she told me that he was trying to do it again. That’s got to be the husband, right?”  
  
Killian shrugged.

“Ok, that’s not helpful at all.”  
  
“Hold on, hold on,” David cut in. “We’re still talking about Emma’s ghost? Em, did you see someone? Here?”  
  
“Not here specifically.”  
  
“Oh my God.”  
  
“She said that exactly, Swan?” Killian asked. “Again?” 

“Seems important, right?”  
  
He hummed, tongue swiping in front of his teeth. She needed to stop looking at his tongue. “America won,” Killian muttered. “That...it all worked the way it was supposed to, eventually, but the road to Yorktown wasn’t great. There were a dozen instances where Washington could have lost control and—”  
  
“—These sound a hell of a lot like questions only the woman can answer.”

“No.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“I know what you’re thinking Swan and absolutely not.”  
  
“Ok, first of all, you are not a mind-reader, so jot that down. And second of all, that’s ridiculous. You are the one who is constantly talking about ghosts and—” Emma cut herself off. She couldn’t help it. Because the look on his face wasn’t one she’d ever seen before and she wasn’t entirely sure she ever wanted to see it again. 

She leaned forward, both hands on Killian’s cheeks. He kissed the inside of her left wrist. David didn’t make any noise.  
  
“I don’t know why this is happening,” Emma whispered. “But it is. And it’s...I can hear this woman and I saw her last night and she needs—if I can help her, then I’m going to.”  
  
Killian took a deep breath. “I know, Swan. But I’ll be damned if you do it by yourself.”

“Well, this is very romantic and absolutely lovely, but, uh, you guys are both idiots if you think I’m not going too,” David said. 

Emma nearly fell off Killian’s leg. “Are you kidding me?”  
  
“Are you? I was the one who knew the story, Em. Plus, something about this just...it feels off, you know?”  
  
“The ghosts weren’t a clue?”  
  
“You’re using humor to deflect and that’s fair, but I can also get the key for the Wythe house from Locksley. So.”  
  
“Fine,” she groused, only faking the irritation a little. “What time would you like to commune with the dead?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, hands down, the most self indulgent fic I have ever written and once I wrote 14K words about college basketball. Come flail on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/) if you're down where I am always ready to discuss how going on the multiple ghosts tours Colonial Williamsburg offers as a child freaked me out to my absolute core. 
> 
> I jumped the palace wall once.


	9. An American Haunting, Part Two

They picked quarter of midnight. 

Something about giving them a cushion, which felt a little ridiculous, but then Emma was standing in front of the Wythe house with her hand wrapped up in Killian’s and her stomach in her throat and—  
  
“I can practically hear you thinking, love.”  
  
She glanced at him, lips curling up and a spark in his eye that might have been ninety-six percent of the reason Emma was sure this was going to be alright. “What do I have to think about? A ghost is begging me for help about who knows what and—”  
  
“—Tell me a lesser known Revolutionary War fact.”

“Oh, you think you’re very charming, don’t you?”  
  
“I know I am,” Killian promised, tugging her hand up to kiss the bend of her knuckles. 

“I had a crush on Lafayette when I was a kid.”

He clearly wasn’t expecting that. Emma grinned triumphantly.  
  
“Have you ever seen a portrait of the Marquis, love?”  
  
“No, no, I know,” Emma muttered. “And it’s definitely a weird thing, although not the weirdest thing about me, I guess and—I just...I don’t know. Growing up the way I did and bouncing around houses and cities, I guess it was just appealing. Fighting for an ideal. Joining a cause that wasn’t necessarily yours, but was, at least, kind of good. There’s a certain romanticism to it, isn’t there?”  
  
“Revolutions are always a little romantic for those who win them.”  
  
“That was philosophical.”

Killian chuckled, lips still on Emma’s skin and she yelped when his teeth nipped at her fingers. “You’re not going to do anything ridiculous tonight are you?”  
  
“Aside from the seance?”  
  
“I think it’s only a seance if there are candles involved.”  
  
“Ah, right, right. Then, no. I’m not.”

* * *

 

“Alright, so, basically, we just have to...wait.”

Emma made a noise in the back of her throat, David’s instructions lacking any real instruction. She wasn’t really sure what she wanted to happen, couldn’t really even see anything that _was_ happening because at some point they’d decided not to turn the lights on and that felt like a bad move, but—  
  
The clock behind Emma’s head ticked. 

Midnight. 

Killian’s hand, the same one that hadn’t ever left hers, tightened, thumb brushing over the back of her palm like a metronome. She counted swipes — one, two, three…

_Clack, clack, clack_. 

“Holy shit,” Emma breathed. The sound got louder, moving up the stairs opposite them, but there wasn’t any body and she seriously _could not see_ , just bits of moonlight peeking through wooden blinds and stretching across historically accurate area rugs. 

The noise stopped. 

Only to be replaced by the tell-tale sound of a door hinge and more footsteps and Emma’s whole body convulsed as soon as she heard it, barely keeping her balance. Her head dropped back, colliding with Killian’s collarbone and he must have been muttering words in her ear because she could hear something, but it didn’t sound particularly like him and—  
  
She was moving. 

Emma took the stars two at a time, David and Killian’s matching cries echoing in the air behind her. She didn’t stop. She didn’t slow down. She raced down the narrow hall, the door to the corner room wide open and a shadowy figure staring out the only window. 

“You have to help. He’s getting stronger.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Emma said. She wrapped her arms around her middle, fighting off the chill that crept under her skin. “Who? How is he getting stronger?”  
  
The woman turned, the same dress and disheveled hair and Emma had no idea how she knew. That was also a frustrating theme. 

“You’re repeating the same thing over and over again, aren’t you? The night you ran out of the Palace, that’s—”  
  
“—I didn’t run out of the Palace.”  
  
“The gardens, then?” 

She nodded, Emma trying to piece together a puzzle with far too many pieces. “Ok, ok, so you were here when Rochambeau got word to Washington, right? To come back to the Chesapeake? That’s—did you not want that?”

Emma had never put much stock in the idea of time travel before, but she was also talking to a ghost on the reg now, so she figured maybe she could work with that as well. And immediately use it to retract her question. 

Because the woman still didn’t look all that solid, but her eyes flared, a spark of anger that made the hair on the back of Emma’s neck stand up. She could dimly hear grunting from the bottom of the stairs.  
  
“Want that?” the woman sneered. “That’s all I wanted. That’s exactly what we’d been working towards, trying desperately to end it. But he was...he was stronger than even I realized, a demon. He thrived on the chaos, stoked the rumors and he—if he’d had his way, the war never would have ended at all.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Robert Gold.”  
  
Emma’s hand flew to the doorframe, trying desperately to keep her balance and her sanity. She wasn’t sure she could get both. “Robert Gold. He wasn’t...was he not human?”  
  
The entire house shook.  
  
Possibly the entire world. 

Emma’s knees rattled, what felt like her actual brain bouncing around her skull and she wasn’t sure she’d ever made that noise. The pain that bloomed behind her left eye was excruciating, as if she were being split right down the middle. She grit her teeth, trying to breathe evenly, but it failed spectacularly and the taste of blood in her own mouth made her retch. 

She dropped down, barely able to keep her eyes open as the shadow in front of her flickered, smoke on the water and breath on a window pane, a soft laugh in her ear that made every inch of Emma recoil. 

The footsteps behind her were impossibly loud. 

“Emma, Emma! God, fuck, Emma, are you ok?”  
  
Her right knee was bleeding, the pain in her head ebbing slightly as soon as Killian pulled her against his chest, and Emma wasn’t sure when she’d started crying. It felt like she was choking on her tears, panting with the effort to contain emotion that absolutely was not hers. 

“You’re ok, you’re ok,” Killian said, over and over, as if repeating it would make it true. His hands brushed over her hair and the back of her neck, tracing over the curve of her shoulders and Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him that pale before. 

David was visibly shaking behind him. 

“What just happened?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Emma whispered. “But I don’t think we’re dealing with fun ghost stories anymore.”

* * *

 

“You’re kidding me, right?” Regina asked archly, sitting behind a massive desk with picture frames and even more stacks of paper. She looked more tired than she had two days earlier. “A demon? Be serious, Emma.”  
  
“I am,” Emma promised. “This is—Regina, you’ve got to tell me if I’m losing it.”  
  
“Honestly?”  
  
“Ok, c’mon.”  
  
Regina waved both hands in the air, impatience in the movement and the ringtone of more than one phone. “I don’t have time for this. And don’t think my husband an I aren’t going to have a serious conversation about him letting the three of you into the Wythe house after hours. You could have done serious damage, you could have—”  
  
“—Have you ever heard the name Robert Gold before?”

It was as if all the oxygen had been forcibly removed from the room. Regina’s lips practically disappeared, a flicker of recognition that Emma was going to cling to. 

For her sanity. 

“How did you hear that name?”  
  
“Is that a yes?”  
  
“Emma,” Regina hissed. “This is important. Where did you hear that name?”

“The ghost in the Wythe house told me last night.”

Regina slumped in her chair — a move that was nearly more ridiculous than any of the incredibly ridiculous things Emma had encountered in the last seventy-two hours. “What happened last night?”  
  
Emma explained the whole thing. The voice, the dress, the shoe. She told her about the woman’s pleas to help and how much stronger _he_ was getting and every bit of information seemed to personally offend Regina. Her tongue kept darting between her lips, breathing through her mouth with her eyes darting towards her office door like she was fully expecting the demon to arrive at any moment. 

“So,” Emma said, voice a little scratchy. “You know more about this place than any of us combined, Regina. Your family’s been here for hundreds of years and—”  
  
“—Yes.”  
  
“Wait, what?”  
  
Regina ran an exhausted hand over her face, not bothering to adjust her posture. “Yes,” she repeated. “Or, at least in theory.”  
  
“Explain that better.”  
  
“I don’t know the exact number of greats, but however many it was, my grandmother, her name was Cora. She was old money. The kind of money that could buy influence and decisions in several courts across Europe. Only she, well...rumors swirled, mutterings of virtue and eighteenth-century mindsets and that led to a rather quick betrothal to a man without much else to his name except the letters it was made of. They sailed for the colonies shortly after they were wed.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“And they lived here,” Regina said. “The man—his name was Henry. He owned the coffee shop near the Capitol, but that’s a far cry from what Cora was used to and, if my family’s legends are to be believed, she started cavorting with… a very particular crowd.”  
  
“Did you just use the word cavorting in real life?”  
  
“Witches. Magical folk. There’s plenty of documentation of that in the Tidewater region, going back even to Jamestown. So Cora starts working with magic, looking for something to better her own standing and, maybe, get back to the continent and then, wouldn’t you know, shots are fired at Lexington and Concord.”

“And I’m sure she wasn’t the rebels biggest fan?” Emma guessed. 

Regina shook her head. “Didn’t speak about it, obviously. Especially with Henry’s business and his own political leanings, but, again, this is all just hearsay, passed down through generations.”

“What are you hearing?”  
  
“That Cora wanted out. Of the colony, of her marriage, away from anything even remotely American. But her options were limited and her magic, if she even had any, was basic at best. So she had to seek out some help.”  
  
Emma’s insides froze. It was gross. It felt gross. And cold. And uncomfortable. 

She was certain she was forgetting to ask something. 

Something big.  
  
“There are letters,” Regina continued, “between Cora Mills and Robert Gold starting in October 1775, shortly after the Continental Congress instructed the construction of a naval fleet. No going back after that.”

“And Robert Gold had magic?”  
  
Regina made a noncommittal noise. “Honestly? Fuck if I know, Emma. But that was the rumor. He was said to be an immensely powerful man, although it could never be found what side he was on. He seemed to dance that line in almost perfect rhythm. No abject support for the colonists or the British, just for himself.”  
  
“That’s what she said,” Emma muttered. “The ghost. She said that he thrived on the chaos of the war. Makes sense for a demon, doesn’t it?”  
  
“You’re talking in the hypothetical now.”  
  
“No, I’m—I saw something last night Regina. Something that was...I know it sounds crazy, but it happened and it’s not going to stop.”  
  
“You know that for sure?”  
  
Emma’s lungs hurt. “Killian said we’re close to the beginning of the siege of Yorktown. That’s not...I mean, it’s not an important anniversary.” 

It took, by Emma’s admittedly shaky count, exactly four seconds and one knocked over picture frame for Regina to jump up, eyes wide and fingers fluttering at her side. “Two-hundred and thirty-eight years.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Add up those numbers.”  
  
Emma shook her head, but her mind was already calculating and it wasn’t really hard and—”Oh shit,” she breathed. “Thirteen?”  
  
“Pretty magical number, right?”  
  
“You tell me. You’re the one with a history of witches in your family.”

Regina didn’t look impressed. “What I can’t figure out is why this woman came to you. That’s...it doesn’t make any sense.”  
  
“Well, add that to the list of questions with seemingly no answer. What do we do now?”  
  
“You want me to repeat myself?”

Emma clicked her tongue. “I guess.”  
  
“Fuck if I know.”

* * *

There were no ghosts for the next three days. No words or whispers, but a few pointed glances from Killian and neither he nor Emma had said anything about _feeling_ her. 

That felt like a very large leap in a relationship that was still without any qualifiers. 

And she did look some things up when she felt so inclined, but _demon sightings in the Hampton Roads area_ was kind of a broad search. 

Emma didn’t really want to find anything anyway. 

So she worked at Tarpley’s and ignored Ruby and Mary Margaret’s whispers that abruptly ended as soon as she walked into any room or how often David kept trying to force feed her ginger cookies and she didn’t notice the brick sitting outside her door until Thursday night. 

She wasn’t sure if that was important. 

“What the hell,” Emma mumbled, ducking down to pick up the thing and it was heavier than she expected. “Oh, shit, God, that—”

Eventually she would have loved to finish some of her sentences. 

As it was, the words and expletives kept getting stuck and Emma barely got her phone out of her pocket before she was dialing. 

He answered on the second ring.  
  
“Swan?”  
  
“What do the bricks look like in the garden?”  
  
Killian blinked. She couldn’t see him. She knew anyway. “Elaborate on that for me.”  
  
“Are there people buried back there?”  
  
It sounded like he dropped the phone. Emma glanced towards the sky. She couldn’t bring herself to go in her apartment. That also probably wasn’t important.  
  
“Swan, where are you?” Killian asked, an edge to his voice that she knew wasn’t directed at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”  
  
“There is a brick in my hand.”  
  
“Love, I can’t read your mind if you’re not in front of me.”  
  
“I came home and there was a brick here,” Emma explained. “That hadn’t been here, I don’t know—at least last week. And I think...it looks like the wall to the palace gardens. That’s got to be a sign, right?”  
  
“Of what, exactly?”  
  
“What are you doing right now?”  
  
“Emma.”  
  
“That’s not an answer.”  
  
“You cannot go back there,” Killian said. She could hear the crunch of seashells under his feet. He was outside the Randolph house. That felt oddly appropriate. 

“Someone left this here for me. That’s—the woman said he wouldn’t stop and I...Regina was right, there’s got to be a reason that I could do this.”  
  
Silence. 

Emma grimaced.  
  
“You talked to Regina about this?” Killian whispered, and Emma knew the wind around her was just that. She hoped so, at least. 

“You told David I was hearing voices!”  
  
“Ok, that is not the same thing and I was—”  
  
“—Worried. I know, I know, but...ok, Regina thinks Robert Gold was a bad guy who, possibly, was involved in some serious magic-type shit and the ghost told me he never wanted the war to end. Someone had to tell Rochambeau about Cornwallis’ plans, right? Yes, the answer is yes. And we thought it would be this Gold guy, but what if it..” 

Emma licked her lips, a step back from the door that was suddenly rattling in front of her. That couldn't have been good. 

“What if it was the woman?” she asked. “It’s not totally unheard of at the time. Women turning spy and moving information. If she thought her husband was the good guy he was pretending to be, it’d make sense he was there too. Only he wasn’t a good guy. He was a fucking demon, playing both sides and teaching magic to angry loyalists and—”

  
Emma dropped the phone that time. 

Because the noise on the other end left her gasping, tears pricking her vision and knees threatening to buckle again. It wasn’t a scream. It was...worse than that. It left Emma shivering, darkness wrapping around her like that was even possible, until she was certain she’d never be warm again, a hollowness in her chest and emptiness in her soul. 

She squeezed her eyes closed, clenching her jaw until the pain moved there as well and there was a voice coming from her phone. 

“Oh, Savior! It’s time to come out and play.”

* * *

She must have run there because there was a stitch in Emma’s side by the time she skidded to a stop under the archway leading to the palace gardens, but she genuinely could not remember a single moment of it. 

As if she’d blinked and willed herself to the spot. 

The darkness stretched in front of her there as well, impenetrable and a little intimidating, but she had no idea where Killian was or what _Savior_ meant and she’d left the brick behind. 

“C’mon, Swan,” Emma mumbled, and talking to herself was a sure-fire sign of impending insanity. She took a step forward. 

It had been years since she’d been back there at night, but Emma didn’t remember the whole thing being quite so creepy, oversized hedges and flowers that looked colorless under a dim moon. Emma walked slowly, every move measured so as not to make too much noise or draw attention from an enemy she couldn’t see. 

And it absolutely, positively did not matter when she heard him yelling. 

Emma sprinted. Loudly. Quickly. Sticks and stones under her feet and lungs feeling as if they were actually collapsing in her chest, winding through the maze behind the palace because of course they were in the maze behind the palace.  
“Killian! Killian, where are you?”  
  
She jerked her head around, looking for something she did not want to find, but there wasn’t anything just that same laugh she’d heard in the Wythe house, low and maniacal, like it believed it had already won. 

Emma stopped short, a silhouette in front of her. 

He wasn’t that tall, might have been slouched slightly, leaning against a cane, and Emma knew he wasn’t right. Like, on a fundamental level. His jacket was very clearly late eighteenth-century. The collar was always the tell. 

“Are you Robert Gold?” she asked, another step forward with far more confidence than she actually had. 

He nodded. 

And moved into the bit of moonlight between them. 

Emma gasped. 

She hated that. It wasn’t particularly heroic or powerful, was nothing more than scared, but it had nothing on the whimper she let out as soon as Gold snapped his fingers, Killian landing in a lump at her feet. 

There were bruises on his face, blood caked to his cheek and she’d never been particularly worried about the prosthetic at the end of his left arm, but that was gone now, skin a nasty gray color with more than a few open gashes. 

“Killian,” Emma cried, but any attempt to lean forward proved fruitless when Gold tilted his head, as if there were an invisible barricade in front of them. 

“No, no, no, my dear, we’re not doing that quite yet,” Gold said. “We’ve got to get a few things cleared up first. I’ve heard you’ve been talking to my wife.”

Emma’s eyes flickered to her right, a shadow appearing there suddenly and she only had one shoe on. She was crying again. Or, maybe hadn’t ever stopped. 

That was understandable. 

“You see, my wife, she doesn’t understand what power is,” Gold continued, “What it’s like to be rife with it. To hold the potential of nations in the palm of your hand. She wanted me to give that up. For an ideal. For the future of a few thousand rabble-rousers.”  
  
Emma did not want to laugh. She didn’t. And yet. The sound tumbled out of her, soft and skeptical and—”I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ve just never heard the phrase rabble-rousers used in real life. That was unexpected. Also, just, like, FYI, you’re not a god, so...controlling countries is—”  
  
“—My right,” Gold roared. “Humans never do understand, but you always wanted to be like them didn’t you, Savior?”  
  
“I don’t know what you're talking about!”  
  
Gold hummed, mouth twisted. “I’m sure you don’t. Well, let’s fix that, shall we?”  
  
He snapped his fingers once more, the rush of something colliding with Emma’s stomach making her breath soar out of her and the memories slammed into her. Like punches. Or cannonballs. In a water-based siege. 

She remembered dresses and meetings, quiet discussions at candlelit tables, a voice in her ear and a smile that she thought about as soon as he was gone. She remembered secrets and promises, guarantees to come back and light at the ends of her fingers. 

She remembered a woman, angry and evil, looking for something to change her fate, but unwilling to accept her own faults. She remembered letters, plans that could change everything, end it and secure a future with opportunity and possibility and—  
  
“It was us,” Emma whispered, Gold’s lips twitching. It wasn’t pleasant to look at. He wasn’t entirely opaque. 

“Eh, that’s where it gets a bit confusing,” Gold argued. “Not so much you as...it was...your spirit. Past lives are common in those with power and you, Ms. Swan, have been nothing short of powerful since your very first life. That had an impact on the people you love.”

He nodded in Killian’s direction. 

The tears that landed on Emma’s cheeks were questionably warm. 

“Shall I continue?” Gold quipped. “You don’t have to answer. I was planning on it. You, Ms. Swan are very powerful. A talent that the world was waiting for from the start of it all. Only, you’ve been tasked with this pesky thing called good will and you want to bring that to everyone around you. Including those rebels. Oh, yes, a rather soft spot for them—I’d imagine, mostly because of him.” He pointed at Killian. “Indentured servitude does do wonders for inspiring a rather strong hatred of the crown. So, Captain Jones served in the Continental Army. Fought and believed until his talents took him elsewhere.”  
  
“Spying,” Emma breathed, Gold humming in agreement.  
  
“Precisely. And as much as it pains me to admit it, he was quite good at it. Executed it perfectly even under my nose and—”  
  
“—Because you were playing both sides,” Killian growled, Emma dropping down to him and he actually had the gall to try and smirk at her. “That’s what it was, love. What we were saying, all those ups and downs, both sides unable to get an edge. He did it. God, did you—was Benedict Arnold you too?”

“That’s my knowledge to have now, isn’t it, Captain. Where was I?”  
  
“She helped, didn’t she?” Emma asked, glancing at the woman and she wished she knew her name. It felt disrespectful not to. 

“Oh, yes, quite the little patriot, my Belle. And she also had some support I didn't initially know about. I think you received part of his grave marker?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“William,” Belle said. “He was...he worked with Captain Jones. Served under him and he—”  
  
“—He was the one who found out about Rochambeau, Swan,” Killian said. “I...I can remember that. God, that’s weird.”  
  
Emma let out a strangled sound. “That’s the weird part?”  
  
“You all are ruining the flow of my story,” Gold complained. “Yes, that Scarlet bastard was quite a thorn in my side and he did effectively ruin my plan at the time, that’s why…”  
  
Emma shuddered when another memory slammed into her, the scene playing out like she was watching it in front of her. 

_“General Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette will make their way from New York here,” Will explained, standing at a map-covered table and Emma could barely make out the hint of a smile on his face. “Rochambeau is already making preparations to blockade Cornwallis in the Chesapeake, just outside of Yorktown. If all goes to plan, we’d have nearly double the troops the Redcoats do and we’ll be able to cut them off completely. No one in, no one out.”_ _  
_ _  
“The end of the war,” Emma whispered. “It’d all be over.”_

_Will nodded. “The ink on the treaty should be dry before the leaves start falling.”_ _  
_ _  
“Optimistic,” Killian mused. His thumb brushed over the back of Emma’s hand._

_“Honest. I’ve already sent word to the General and I think_ —”

_He didn’t say anything else, a swipe of a sword and flashes of red and Emma didn’t think before she reacted, a burst of light and surge of heat that moved from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair._

_Robert Gold laughed._

_At her._

_And her inability to realize magic when she saw it._

_And both Killian and Will were laying at her feet._

_“No, no, no,” she whispered, more magic and none of it worked, bouncing against barricades she couldn’t see and Emma would eventually regret the next four and a half minutes. She waved her right hand, tying Will to the land, a rather pitiful attempt to keep his soul on this plane. And she couldn't hear Killian breathing, blood staining his uniform and a distinct lack of anything at the end of his left arm._

_Emma shook her head, mouth moving with unspoken words. He smiled at her. The ass._

_“It’s ok, Swan. It’s_ — _if it ends, it will all be worth it.”_

_She shook her head, footsteps receding and Robert Gold must have left and she didn’t care, couldn't care, not when this was happening and_ — _”No,” Emma objected. “That’s...I’ll see you again, I know it.”_  
_  
“I hope so, love.”_ _  
  
_The white flag came on October 19, 1781. With the leaves changing. 

Emma shook her head, eyes springing open and Gold chuckling in front of her. She waved her hand, certainty and confidence and a power she’d forgotten until that very moment. He stumbled backwards. 

“That was impressive, Savior,” he muttered. “But it’s not going to make a difference.”  
  
“How are you here? You’re...you look dead.”  
  
“Not dead. Simply without a vessel. Belle is dead.”  
  
“Did you kill her?”  
  
“Oh, yes. In that house you lot were all in earlier. Only she managed to do a bit of damage to me as well, a dagger that helps me harness my power and it did sting quite a bit when she stabbed me. That left me, as I said, without a vessel for quite some time, but now—” His smile widened, too many teeth and unspoken threat. “Well, you’re here. Come back to work in this place in another life with that.”  
  
He kicked at Killian, the toe of his boot colliding with ribs and Emma hadn’t realized he’d moved closer while he was talking. 

“But I don’t—what is your game here, exactly?” Emma asked. “Because I hate to tell you this, but the Revolutionary War ended. Like years ago and—”  
  
“—And did humans suddenly decide to stop hating each other?” Gold interrupted. “That’s what brought Cora Mills to my doorstep to begin with. Someday I’ll have to thank her. She did inspire me to get involved in that little revolution. The Captain was right. I toyed with both sides, and it would have lasted forever if it hadn’t been for your meddling. Trying to save everyone, give them the opportunity to thrive. 

So, I ask you Savior? Did any of it make a difference? Did the human race evolve into something better? A horde I couldn’t persuade to follow me, no matter what I was saying? See, that’s your problem. You believe these things...that they can be better. They can’t. They will hate and they will fight and they will kill each other. And that will only make me more powerful. It’s what brought me back now. And, by extension, both you and the Captain.”  
  
“And Will?”  
  
“Oh, still here. Also dead, though. The palace gardens are haunted, aren’t they?”  
  
Emma exhaled, oxygen and more tears and the blood from Killian’s arm was starting to stain the edge of her shirt. And she was sure, maybe in her third life, she’d start thinking before she reacted, but in that moment, with a demon laughing at her and a man she’d loved even longer than she remembered bleeding out at her feet, she simply...was. 

The light around her was bright, dancing off leaves and the branches of trees, casting Robert Gold in a glow that made the shadows around him disappear. 

Killian reached up towards her, fingers cold, but determined and Emma didn’t gasp when they curled around hers. She smiled.  
  
“It’s me,” she said, not a question, but the absolute certainty that she was right. “The only thing that can stop you because you don’t exist in this world and I do. In both of them. I’ve got—oh, you know what? I am more powerful than you!”

Gold tripped over his own feet, trying to move away from her and back into the darkness. Emma nodded, a soft laugh that was really more triumph than humor. 

“I am,” she continued. “That’s why I turned down Cora Mills when she tried to find me first. And that’s why this will work. Because I wasn’t the only thing that came back to fight you.” Emma crouched down, ignoring Killian’s objection because this could not have been proper military tactics, but she had a hunch and—well, more than a hunch. 

She looked directly at him, a mix of past and present, and _God_ , she hoped, the future and his lips parted underneath Emma’s as soon as she touched him. 

It wasn’t particularly dignified, couldn't be when they were twisted at such awkward angles, but Emma swore she could feel it in every inch of her, a softness to it that was almost tender and still, somehow, greedy, making up for lost time and could have beens and—

“I love you,” Emma whispered. 

It was like the goddamn sun and the moon and something, Emma was sure, about the rocket’s red glare, just to drive home the patriotic point, but that was a different war and none of it mattered when Gold screamed. 

The sound echoed off those same trees, Emma jerking her head up with narrow eyes and a thrum of energy under her skin. She didn’t pull her gaze away or blink, staring at Gold and focusing on that one, particular shadow behind him.   
   
He fell backwards. 

And the shadow wrapped around him, like rope and something about a hangman’s noose. It curled around his shoulders and twisted around his elbows, pinning his hands to his side and moving towards his mouth, blocking any sound or any screams and Emma was thankful for that. 

She didn’t want to hear what the shadow did to him. 

Watching was bad enough. 

It engulfed Gold, moving slowly so that Emma saw every inch of him disappear, but Killian’s hand didn’t leave hers and the wisp that was Belle looked like it was getting more and more corporal. It felt like it lasted forever and not nearly long enough. Until. There was nothing there. 

No Gold. No shadow. Just a tree and a breeze, bits of light hanging from the tips of Emma’s fingers. 

Killian wasn’t bleeding anymore. 

Emma kissed the end of his arm. 

“Belle?”  
  
The voice at the other end of the clearing was almost bursting with hope, the emotion hanging off all five letters and they needed to stop gasping. 

Maybe after the emotional reunions. 

Will Scarlet was still wearing his army-issued uniform, but his hair wasn’t matted to his forehead anymore, a brightness to his eyes and the tilt of his lips. He took a shaky step forward, hand grips the hilt of his sword and—  
  
“Are you wearing only one shoe?”  
  
Belle let out a watery laugh, hand flying to her mouth, but then she might have been flying, arms around Will’s neck and both feet off the ground and it was all romance and feeling and _alive_ , sort of, at least. 

They lingered in each other’s space for a moment, oblivious to anything else, but then Will jerked his head towards Emma, eyes going wide. “Did you do this? Me here, I mean?”  
  
“Did you leave a brick on my doorstep?”  
  
“I wasn’t sure it would work. I’m kind of...stuck in this area, you know.”  
  
“I’m sorry about that.”  
  
“Don’t be. I...I didn’t want to leave.”  
  
“I think I can help with that, actually.”  
  
The hope returned. In spades. 

Emma nodded once, a quick inhale and sharp exhale, focusing on a different path and the corner of the maze and the tiny pinpricks of light leading towards something that was far bigger than she could process in the moment. 

“Thank you,” Belle said. “For all of it.”

She didn’t respond. Again. Still. But Belle didn’t seem to mind, just smiled softly and laced her fingers through Will’s, his curt nod the last thing Emma saw before they both disappeared around the corner. 

* * *

They went back to Killian’s apartment.  
  
It wasn’t not so much a decision as it was the only acceptable possibility, far too much... _everything_ to go back to at Emma’s and—  
  
“You want to move in together?” she asked, curled against his side with his shirt on and eventually they’d have to talk about past lives. If only because she wasn’t sure if that meant he’d always be able to feel her magic. 

Emma figured that’s what had happened. 

“Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah? Just like that?”  
  
“I love you too,” Killian said. “I didn’t say that before, that was ridiculous.”  
  
“You were kind of busy.”  
  
“Avoiding death, yeah.” Emma rolled her eyes. He smirked. The ass. Again. “Which you saved me from. More than once, it seems.”  
  
“And that’s not freaking you out?”  
  
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. But only in a fear for my own mortality kind of way. I’m not sure my soul is quite prepared to move on at this point.”  
  
Emma quirked an eyebrow. “That so?”  
  
“Nah, lots of things I had planned. Both times around. The schedule’s been a little hectic, though. So I’d very much like to start crossing things off the to-do-list, as it were.”  
  
He moved as he spoke, hovering over her until Emma’s shoulders pressed into the corner of the couch and she had to hook her leg around his in an attempt not to fall on the floor. Killian groaned. “That’s your own doing,” she mumbled, already working her fingers under his shirt. “Take this off.”  
  
“I think we’re very much on the same page, love.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
His mouth dropped towards hers, all want and need and she was never going to stop thinking about his tongue. No matter how many times they did this. It swiped across her lips, Emma sighing against him and she was going to brag about whatever sound he made as soon as she canted her hips up for, like, at least the next few weeks. 

She tilted her head, trying to crowd into his space more, or possibly just take up some room in his soul and she got the distinct impression it wouldn’t be that hard. Killian’s hand moved under her back, palm flat on her skin and goosebumps there and for a moment it was all heady rhythm and tongues and teeth, slightly squished noises and panted breaths. 

And then—  
  
“I would have followed you anywhere, you know that?”  
  
Emma stilled. She’d closed her eyes at some point. Idiotic. Particularly when he was staring at her like that, several jokes about the sun and North Stars and—“Let’s not make a habit of it, ok?”  
  
“Deal. I love you.”  
  
“That’s twice now.”  
  
“Consider it an attempt to reach an overdue quota.”  
  
She laughed, fingers trailing over the stubble on his jaw. “You want to sleep? I haven’t—it’s been kind of hard to do that recently. I mean I’m all for the to-do-list, but…”  
  
“The rest of our lives, right?”  
  
“I hope so.”  
  
“Deal,” Killian repeated, and his arm found its way back around Emma’s middle as soon as they dropped onto his bed. 

* * *

They didn’t stop working the extra ghost tour shifts. 

And they didn’t ever say anything about magic or past lives or anything, although Emma had a fairly strong suspicion that Regina had her own suspicions. If only because she let Emma stop wearing that one particular hoops skirt when it got especially warm. 

And Killian kept working the audience in every crowd, the groups getting a little bigger every few weeks, gasping on cue at stories and hauntings and—  
  
“Isn’t that right, Mistress Jones?” he asked, a summer later in the middle of a historic heatwave, and Emma couldn’t stop her answering smile if she tried. She didn’t really try. 

“Oh, yes, absolutely. Very haunted here in the capital city. Now, uh, if you’d all like to follow me, we’ll move on to the next location, just up the street and you may want to double check for anything in those photos you just took.”

Emma glanced Killian’s direction when the reactions came, one side of his mouth tugging up and a bit of light glinting off the ring on his right hand. 

He took a step forward, a quick kiss to her cheek that only a few tourists noticed, far too preoccupied with their photos and possibility and—  
  
“I’ll see you at home, love,” he muttered. 

“Liar.”  
  
Killian hummed, squeezing her hand and he was waiting outside the staff room when Emma finished, an upturned palm and the undeniable spark of magic in the air around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are some more Williamsburg facts about me and my family: My dad once got into a shouting match with the Benedict Arnold reenactor. But, like, in a fun way. 
> 
> Thomas Jefferson gets Christmas cards from my mom. 
> 
> The Raleigh Bakery seriously has the best ginger cookies. 
> 
> Workers won't break character during regular business hours (sometimes they do on tours) and my sister, husband and I are kind of jerks and made it a game to act like we were from the future with our knowledge of how the Revolution was going to go. A reenactor told my sister she was a witch because of this. 
> 
> Come flail on [Tumblr](http://welllpthisishappening.tumblr.com/) if you're down.


End file.
